Electron 29
by chris dee
Summary: Cat—Tale 61: They call it the Grifter's Curse. If a long con player, mob boss or theme rogue falls victim to a smalltime scam, bad luck will follow.
1. NASDAQ

**Electron 29**  
_Chapter 1: NASDAQ

* * *

_

The Maya Calendar includes five unnamed days at the end of the cycle thought to bring bad luck. The barriers to the Underworld are said to dissolve, allowing any malicious god or mischievous spirits to enter the mortal realm and cause whatever havoc strikes their fancy. The name if this period is Wayeb', a mere one letter shy of being an anagram for B. Wayne. That one letter happens to be an "N," as in Nigma, Edward R., aka The Riddler, Arkham Patient File #66-N341. If Riddler considered bad luck at all in relation to his Mayan puzzle box, it would have been in those terms. He would not consider the possibility that the heat from the Batsignal might crack the clay, causing the box to crumble and allowing the police to read the clue themselves…

* * *

Wayne One reached a new cruising altitude, and Captain Leffinger opened the intercom and announced the revised ETA. Bruce checked his watch and grunted; Selina adjusted her pillow and ignored him. Nearly three hours 'til they touched down in Gotham… She yawned and pretended to sleep.

Few things got under Bruce's skin like otherwise informed, rational people saying nice things about Lex Luthor. His administration and his company were acknowledged as failures, since to deny such realities would be like denying the existence of the sun. But the catastrophic mess was attributed to Luthor's _followers_, not to the man himself, his core principles and his vision. It was the misguided nobodies who were to blame, those who misunderstood what Luthor was _ really_ about and mimicked his early success from that place of incomplete understanding.

It annoyed Selina too, of course. She was no fan of Luthor's. But she was also no fan of long plane rides with Bruce when he'd had to suffer several days of those dipshits.

"Look at his track record: the things he's said, the things he's done, the reasons he's given for doing them. That anyone can look at something so wholly bad and not recognize it as such is unfathomable."

"Yes, Bruce, I agree, but—"

"That they can even be persuaded it has some merit because they read it somewhere twenty years ago—half the time it's Luthor's own spin doctors they're quoting, too."

"I know," Selina breathed. "And they're allowed to vote and drive cars and get jobs at the Gotham Post. It pisses me off t—"

"And buy stock," Bruce added in PsychoBat's darkest gravel. "Let's not forget that one."

"Yes," Selina nodded. That was the crux of it. They bought Wayne Enterprises stock, among others. Since the stockholders' meeting was always held in Gotham, Bruce had implemented a series of town hall meetings in major cities.

Selina got up from her chair as she spoke… "You told me you like meeting the shareholders at these things," she said, relocating behind his chair and giving his shoulders a gentle rub.

"Usually. Most of them," he admitted.

"But it only takes one nimrod from Alabama, two in Houston and that guy in Seattle to put your nose out of joint?"

"The suggestion that Wayne Tech would be more profitable if we abandoned any notion of social responsibility and adopted the petty, hare-brained, vindictive, short-sighted practices of Lex Luthor, practices that alienated once-loyal customers, destroyed market share, gave the entire industry a deplorable reputation it still hasn't recovered… Never mind, you don't want to hear this again."

She laughed. "I thought you were going to punch the guy in Pittsburgh that suggested the Foundation should give up 'all the charity stuff' and stick with political donations."

"Now that the government can't put any limits on corporate political spending, there's no need for the philanthropic smokescreen," Bruce quoted. "You can go straight to the source and purchase power."

Selina stared. The words were the stockholder from Pittsburgh's, but the voice and intonation were unmistakably that of Ra's al Ghul.

"Was that a Ra's voice?" she asked, pointing in mock-horror.

"Not intentionally," Bruce shrugged.

"Just comes out that way when you want to convey ambition, cynicism, and guile devoid of empathy or conscience?"

Bruce's lip twitched… twitched again… and then gave way into a restrained smile as he closed his eyes and surrendered to a soft chuckle.

"That's why I brought you on this trip," he said emphatically.

"No, it's not," Selina said knowingly. "But I'm glad if my being here makes you laugh." She had settled in the chair across from his, and now she stretched her foot forward to rub against his ankle. "Now tell me the real reason," she purred.

* * *

_Oakland or LA, I'm inspired.  
A tale of survivors who are mired  
Is not what it seems  
When you wait for the beams  
To reflect upon what is desired._

* * *

There was a particular quality Catwoman had when she asked Batman—just this once—to look the other way and let her leave with a diamond tiara. Bruce had conjured the image on many lonely nights, lingering on the details, studying the nuances… The way her breath parted her lips on the word "please." The way her eyelids dipped as she blinked. The way her head tilted back and to the side, almost imperceptibly, hinting ever so subtly at the kisses that could be his.

"I know something happened Thursday," she pressed.

"Sort of—no, not really. Nothing… Nothing important enough to bother you with."

So much had changed between them, but the essence of the woman behind the mask had not.

"Just important enough to have me cancel my plans and come along on the Wayne Tech Magical Mystery Tour. I'd just like to know why."

The softness of that lower lip as her breath parted it, the way her eyelids dipped as she blinked… and the way it all affected him. The way Batman's instinctual hold on the situation seemed to blur and shift. Deep down, he knew the right thing to do, the words he had to say, the action he had to take.

"Bruce, please."

But somehow, gazing into those impossibly green eyes, the knowledge was… lost.

"You caused a dip in the NASDAQ," he said, releasing his tenuous grip on his own will and giving her what she wanted.

"I what?" she sputtered—but before either could say more, the intercom switched on and Captain Leffinger suggested they fasten their seatbelts for another patch of turbulence.

* * *

"Why Batman, how hard do you want it to get?"

Rattle. Falter. Mental sweat drop.

Grand Central Station, a lifetime before, their first rooftop. He'd said "Alright, Catwoman, we can do this the easy way or the hard way" and she said "Why Batman, how hard do you want it to get?" What did he, Gotham's Dark Knight, the Scourge of the Underworld, the Avenging Angel of Justice say in reply? Nothing. Rattle. Falter. Mental sweat drop. Agonizing moments of mute futility as his mind strained to free itself from whatever just happened to him, and then coming up with a maddeningly inadequate "This isn't a game."

It was the first of many such episodes. Moments where she somehow stripped his mind and body of their ability to do what Batman required. After each occurrence, he berated himself. After each occurrence, he conjured the details, analyzed the nuances: the purr in her voice, the green of her eyes, the way her breath parted her lips…

Batman _knew_ what had to be done, always. It was a part of him, an instinct, a reflex, as natural and effortless as blinking. Yet somehow that woman dismantled it, time after time. She snipped the connections the way she snipped wires in an alarm. Over here there was the rational man's knowledge of what he had to do—in this case, executing the NASDAQ protocol to address the stock fluctuation without Selina ever finding out what had happened. Over there was the muscle movement required to do it. And in between, a flicker of claws, snip-snip-snip, and the connection was severed.

After their first few encounters, PsychoBat had come to the conclusion that the mysterious woman in purple must be physically manipulating him: psychotropic drugs, hypnotism, telepathic influence, possibly even _magic_. Somehow, she was altering his brain chemistry to befuddle him or cloud his judgment… Shortly thereafter, he'd had his first run-in with Poison Ivy and her pheromone-induced euphoria, giving him first-hand experience with that type of manipulation. In the years that followed, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, and Hugo Strange, along with one-shot telepaths, hypnotists, aliens, scientists and sorcerers had given him more experience with mind control and mental manipulation than he ever cared to know. None of it ever felt like what he experienced with Catwoman. PsychoBat eventually had to admit that whatever it was that Catwoman did to him, it had nothing to do with altering his brain chemistry.

Bruce eventually forced the knowledge into PsychoBat's corner of his psyche: it _was_ chemistry, of course it was chemistry, anyone past the age of puberty could see it was chemistry. Just not the scientific variety.

"You caused a dip in the NASDAQ," he'd said. Like a puppet whose strings were cut. Snip-snip with her claws, without even knowing she was doing it apparently. She asked what happened and he told her: "You caused a dip in the NASDAQ."

Damn her.

* * *

"Bruce, there is a little WE stock in my portfolio, but I haven't bought or sold anything in almost a year. How could I possibly—"

"It's nothing like that," he murmured… This was really happening. He told her—came right out and told her simply because she asked, and now he was going to have to explain the whole miserable business. "You were, um… shopping last week… on Fifth Avenue."

"Y-yes."

"You stopped in at Cartier."

"Yes, I did. I was a very good girl, too. I walked in through the front door, while they were open for business…"

"Yes, well, unfortunately, Saul Drescher of the _ Financial Times_ saw you. Can I ask why you went?"

"A cat's curiosity. I did hit them last month during my staged crimewave and I wanted to see if they were going to go on high alert when I walked in as Selina—"

"Or go on sucking up as if you were Mrs. Bruce Wayne," Bruce concluded. "I thought as much."

"So… wait a minute… a couple salesmen wait on me in front of this Saul Drescher and Wayne stock drops?"

"Three-eighths of a point."

"Three-eighths of a… because I walked into a store?"

"A jewelry store where they engrave invitations and sell diamond rings and—"

"And their logo is a panther! They've got gold and diamond and platinum _cats_ everywhere you turn around! I could have been casing the place—"

"But you weren't."

"But I could have been!"

"But you weren't."

"I wasn't looking at diamond solitaires either, so why is this Saul idiot jumping to conclusions?"

_Why Batman, how hard do you want it to get?_

Rattle. Falter. Mental sweat drop.

Chemistry.

"Bruce?"

"Listen, Selina, I've told you what we know. Anything else would be speculation."

The plane dropped suddenly with a nauseating jolt, and Captain Leffinger quickly opened the intercom to apologize. He assured them he was taking the safest route around the storm system they were avoiding, and the turbulence they were experiencing was a necessary tradeoff.

Selina dug her nails into the armrest, like a cat sinking in her claws for balance, and directed Catwoman's angriest glare at Bruce.

"From anyone else, 'speculation' might be code for a half-assed guess. From you, it's _what happened_ even though you can't prove it in court. So spill: I've been in Cartier a dozen times since we got together. The salesmen get dollar signs in their eyes and fawn all over me. Why was Thursday different?"

Bruce took a deep breath. It was no use; the proverbial feline had sauntered defiantly out of the sack.

"Every two weeks, Lucius has a very small press briefing for the niche publications: aeronautic, medical, research and tech publications with very small, profession-based circulations. It's not like a White House press conference or anything. I dropped in on the last one because we were outlining our plans for the Tech Expo next month. WayneTech's presence is going to be bigger than ever before since we're rolling out some very important new—"

"Bruce, I've sat through nine town hall meetings in the past five days. I know as much about that expo as you do."

"Right. Well… Webster from _Geo-Imaging Monthly_ just got engaged. He announced it to the others right before I walked into the room. I asked what all the laughter and backslapping was about, they told me, and I congratulated him. We had the presentation, gave them their press kits, and as we were walking out, Lucius said something like 'it was nice of me to be so gracious about Webster' since I look on marriage as 'worse than death.' I said that I certainly did not, and he said 'Well, as something other people do, then.' I said 'Oh, I don't know about that,' and the next thing I know, Saul Drescher is jumping to wild conclusions when he sees you in Cartier's."

Selina's mouth had dropped open slightly and her eyes widened to a confused stare. She started to speak, her head tilting back and her lips shaping themselves to pronounce some word that began with 'w,' but she thought the better of it. She just shook her head briefly as if evading an insect, and then primly crossed her legs.

"One or more of the reporters obviously heard the exchange," Bruce explained unnecessarily. "Passed it along to a colleague from a financial publication." The intercom switched on and Captain Leffinger announced that they had passed through the last of the turbulence. Selina found the announcement revoltingly ill-timed as the pilot went on to say they should consider themselves free to release their seat belts and move freely through the plane.

"Look, the price corrected by 9:45 Friday morning," Bruce said reassuringly. "Still, given the market's hysterical reaction, I felt a p—" (he stopped himself from saying protocol, since Selina often reacted to the term) "program of public appearances was in order. Let them get used to seeing Wayne the CEO in the context of being CEO with Selina Kyle at his side."

"So they build up a tolerance," Selina said archly. "Like I'm arsenic."

"If you want to put it that way, yes."

"That doesn't even work with Pammy," she grumbled under her breath.

Bruce suppressed a lip twitch, and since he suspected he wasn't supposed to have heard the reference to Poison Ivy, he went on as if he hadn't: "This way, should we ever decide to pursue a change in our personal circumstances, they won't be inclined to overreact. I'm getting a bottle of water, would you like something?"

"N-no," Selina managed, and as he walked back towards the plane's small kitchen, she was grateful Bruce preferred to wait on himself when he flew rather than have his privacy compromised by an attendant.

What did he mean by…

Layers of realization burned through the mental fog in a matter of seconds, and she got up to follow Bruce to the kitchen.

"Change your mind? Fruit juice?" he offered.

She simply stared.

"Selina?"

Stared.

"Look, Selina, the market's response is assuming a marriage is mercenary and would be followed by a divorce that could impact the company. I find that galling and offensive. I don't allow Superman to second guess my judgment in that fashion. I certainly won't stand for it from presumptuous hedge fund managers. So you'll attend a few events like these town halls every year, they'll get used to seeing us together in those settings and get it out of their system."

"I see," Selina said, hoping she wasn't breathing hard, but because of the way her heart was pounding, she couldn't be completely sure. "So, it's just a control freak thing."

"It is a proactive, measured response to an unacceptable—"

"Yes, yes, whatever BatSpeak bullshit label you want to put on it. It's a control thing. It's not… Your _actual views_ on... 'personal circumstances' haven't changed."

"Ah, I see. No. No, they haven't."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Bruce, if your views change on that subject, I expect to hear about it before Webster from _Geo-Imaging Monthly."_

Lip twitch.

"Agreed."

* * *

It was usual for Catwoman to get home from her prowl a few hours before Batman. Often as not, she was fast asleep by the time he finished the logs and went up to bed. So Bruce was surprised to see a light as he reached the top of the stairs. It shone under the door across the hall from their bedroom, Selina's suite, so he knocked and looked in. He saw her on the sofa, still in costume with newspapers and magazines lying open all around her. Her laptop sat directly ahead on the coffee table, so the setting might have resembled a low tech version of Workstation 1 in the Batcave, except for the defeated slump of her shoulders. Rather than typing up a log with a brisk, determined air or consulting one of the publications to find a reference or check a fact, Selina stared listlessly at the screen.

"You're up late," he noted. "Anything I can do?"

She chuckled sadly at that. "No."

"Just 'no?'"

"You can't help, Bruce. Let's leave it at that."

"You sure? I'm pretty resourceful," he said, a note of levity tempering Batman's gravel. The sound made Selina look up sharply. That odd mix of the Batman voice and Bruce's low-key humor was a rarity, even with her. "C'mon, Kitten. With all the town halls you've sat through this week, I owe you. Tell me what's wrong."

"I don't' want to. You'll make fun."

"I'll _make fun_? You can't be serious."

"You didn't want to tell me about the NASDAQ, remember? Well, I don't want to tell you this. Go away. Bother other criminals."

Bruce closed his eyes and shook his head, summoning patience. Bother other criminals. Impossible woman.

Her mention of the NASDAQ discussion sparked those thoughts again: Chemistry. How she could always get to him in ways no one else could. Even now when it had evolved so far beyond those early rooftop games, she still had that uncanny ability to get inside him, into his heart or into his head, and extract whatever she wanted. But he also understood that chemistry worked in both directions. She might try to wave him off, but until the claws came out and drew blood, it was all just words.

And the words were telling. "Bother other criminals" meant it was Batman she didn't want to talk to. "Bother other criminals" meant whatever the problem was, it was from the felonious part of her life. It meant…

"What's Nigma done now?" he asked—this time without a hint of levity lightening the deep Bat-gravel. Selina merely glared—or rather, Catwoman did. "Does it have anything to do with the copycat? There have been two incidents this week. Doesn't look like Cluemaster."

"It's not Cluemaster and it's not a copycat. Eddie left a message for me to come see him tonight. I went and I got the whole story. If I tell you—Bruce, so help me, if I tell you this in confidence, you can't make fun."

"Selina, these were not Riddler clues. An Officer Bailk solved the first one and—"

"And Robin solved the second, I know!"

"Robin was at the scene. _Batgirl_ solved the riddle that led them there."

"Batg… Cassie? Oh, poor… We are never going to tell him that."

"You're not saying it was Nigma."

"Bruce, I mean it, you can't poke fun. No 'criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot,' no twitchy lip or that puffy grunt that we all know is a laugh."

"Selina, what—

"Promise me."

"Selina!"

"Promise!"

Grunt.

"Eddie's lost his mojo."

"What?"

* * *

"It's the Grifter's Curse, Lina. If a mob boss or a long con player or a name Rogue like you or me gets stung in a small time scam, Under Weer—no, wait. Nuder… Nude weer, WE'RE RUINED, DAMNIT! Look at me, I can't even anagram a simple two word phrase with three Es."

Selina frowned, first at Eddie and then at a crack in the ceiling which periodically dripped a blob of water onto the floor between them.

"Eddie, we went over this with Houdini's notebook. Curses like that aren't real, they're just self-fulfilling prophesy."

"You sure? Zatanna's nasty little secret came out with a vengeance after she touched it, didn't it?"

"Mine didn't and neither did Bruce's." Eddie crossed his hands in front of his chest, thumbs touching, and made a fluttery bat-wing motion. Selina felt the blood draining from her face as she realized that, in relation to Eddie, they had. "Let's say you've convinced me," she said tersely. "How did this happen?"

"I bought a smart phone. Since I want it to make calls, I couldn't go with Apple, and since I didn't want anything with your boyfriend's name on it, I had to scratch the top thirty-six alternatives. That led me to DreamFixer."

"What?"

"It's a website. They sell stuff. In this case, a smart phone with built in satellite, eighty-four applications and wireless internet. Except it turns out the instructions are in Japanese, the satellite only covers Tokyo, the thing won't charge in a 110 volt/60 hertz outlet without a special adapter—which is no longer for sale. And the apps…"

"Are in Japanese."

"Most involve nauseatingly cute cartoon kittens, rabbits, penguins or geese, cross-dressing Japanese pop stars in 18th century naval uniforms singing show tunes, or a collection of fetishy animations, the _tamest_ of which what I can only describe as 'naughty tentacles.'"

"Moving right along," Selina said… and once again, the ceiling dripped. As Eddie replaced the sauce pan beneath it with a towel, he explained that he hadn't tried to get a refund immediately since he had a time-critical riddle that had to be delivered to the Batsignal. It was one of his best. Encased in a Maya puzzle box, which was the cleverest piece of misdirection he'd ever come up with. Setting up Batman to fail, setting him up to miss the real clue and chase the red herring:

"Oakland or LA, 'Lina. Any normal man will think Oakland _Raiders_ and once that word's in their head: _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. You're predisposed to see it, so 'a tale of survivors' is a story _arc_ on _Lost_, and so on. I had a map room all set up, 'Lina. Jigsaw and Tangram hit every hobby shop in the tri-state area to get me the miniatures. Whole miniature Gotham laid out for him, sweet little trail of clues to lead him to it. Batman should have been standing right there with the Headpiece of Hairdo waiting for the sun to come up, while I was at the Algonquin making off with the goods from the Breathing Hope into Haiti fundraiser."

* * *

Bruce was delighted to explain how Riddler's plan had gone awry.

"The S.O.P. when the signal is lit without authorization is to dispatch a patrolman to the roof to see what if anything has been left, and then to notify the Commissioner who turns the box/envelope/whatever over to me when I get there. In this case, the officer found a slip of paper lying in the middle of broken pottery, so he read it.

"Officer Bailk is taking night classes at Brooklyn Law and there's more Latin than he expected. So he looked straight past the obvious and focused the real clue: the word 'inspired.' From the Latin _ inspirate_, which means 'to breathe.' The Breathing Hope into Haiti fundraiser was on the morning blotter because of all the valuables in the silent auction. And once Commissioner Muskelli was on the scent, they checked the details and saw the keynote speaker was a Dr. Inez Oakland, author of _Solving the Conundrum of Disaster Relief in Louisiana._"

"Oakland to LA," Selina laughed. "Damn, that is slick. Oh, poor Eddie!"

Bruce scowled.

* * *

Eddie scowled. And the ceiling dripped a particularly large drop onto his head.

"You should have seen it, 'Lina. Uniforms everywhere, the place looked like a donut shop. I barely got out at all, and I left my cane behind."

"You said there was a sequel. What happened with your next crime?" Selina asked.

"Niobium."

"Come again?"

"Niobium. Chemical element with the symbol Nb. Also a critical element of _my clue_. Its atomic number is 41, as in 41 Park Avenue, where a Mrs. Caron lives. Mrs. Caron is the descendent of Felice Augustine, who corresponded for twenty years with Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Pierre Charles L'Enfant was the architect and planner who laid out Washington D.C. and is thought to have embedded any number of Masonic codes and puzzles into the city structure. He is also thought to have confided in Felice Augustine. Do you see?"

"Nope."

"Right! And neither should anyone else. Nobody should be walking around with the atomic number of niobium in their head. Except sent an email that morning. Subject line: the atomic number of niobium! They're having a 41% off sale. What kind of sick joke is that? They could have used Mozart's last symphony or Montana's number in the union or the year Caligula was assassinated, but nooo. Atomic number of niobium."

"Eddie, calm down."

"That's how I know it's a curse, 'Lina. That kind of bad luck doesn't just happen on its own. What do you call a five letter word for a four letter word?"

There was a small whistling noise as the crack in the ceiling widened ever so slightly and the intermittent drops started falling in a drizzling trickle.

* * *

To be continued…


	2. The Mark

**Electron 29**  
_Chapter 2: The Mark  


* * *

_

All things considered, Eddie's been a pretty good sport since finding out about Bruce. He's taken a few unnecessary swings at my head, but once you factor in his obsessions and psychosis and the fact that Batman always solved his riddles, he's been a good sport. He helped in the last round against Joker just to pull focus from me, so it wasn't Catwoman fighting crime as much as all Rogues fed up with Joker's theme-snatching saying "Enough already" and punching back.

I owed him. He was in dire straits with this Grifter's Curse, and he wasn't going to get himself out of it alone, not with his personal dark cloud following him around wherever he went. So I agreed to help—under one condition. I didn't mind helping a friend, but I drew the line at going to that lair of his to do it. He only set up shop on the East End because he knows I avoid it like the plague. With the Post's nauseating lies about me centering on that area, it's literally the last part of town where I'll risk being seen. Ironically, that's another example of Eddie being a good sport. Since he discovered I'm dabbling in crimefighting on rare occasions, a lair on the East End was a way to guarantee that we wouldn't be running into each other. If a cape comes knocking on his door, he knows it won't be me. So he can pull whatever jobs occur to him, I can indulge in the occasional date night patrol with Bruce, and we both know our paths will never cross. Friendship remains intact and everybody's happy, Riddle Me-ow.

Except it hasn't really worked. He's had one personal crisis after another since moving into that hell hole—nothing that called for a drop in from a crimefighting cape, just the kind of thing that needs a drop in from a friend. So I've sucked it up and gone to the East End. More than once I've gone, and that's as much compromise as he gets from this kitty. I wasn't going to be _DRIPPED ON_ on top of everything else. I let Eddie know that if he wanted to see me under his roof ever again, he needed to find himself a new roof in some other part of time, preferably one capable of keeping out the rain. Until then, we'd meet at the Iceberg.

* * *

This was a new low for Edward Nigma. The Iceberg Lounge, the one place a Rogue of his standing was guaranteed VIP treatment, and they didn't have a table for him. Raven looked better than he'd ever seen her. She was in a new hostess dress: black, sleeveless, scoop neck, sequins. The "wow" that escaped him when he saw her had dropped his voice into the Bat-register. Eddie wanted to think that's why she refused him a table. The dining room was never fully booked for _The Riddler_, so hearing an unfamiliar voice, she must have mistaken him for a groupie. The dream was short-lived, unfortunately, for she went on to address him as Mr. Nigma when she suggested he "try to find a spot" in the bar.

It was easier said than done. He had to go through the dining room to reach the bar, squeezing around tables of more fortunate diners whose chairs were practically back-to-back to begin with. The reason was clear enough: there was an icy-white grand piano under the chandelier that had never been there before, and Oswald was too cheap to remove tables to make room. Every table was full, and one man even tried to give Eddie a drink order as he squeezed past.

Reaching the barroom, it looked like his only choices were sitting with Hugo Strange, with henchmen, or with KGBeast. Picking the least objectionable, he asked KGBeast what he was drinking and it was enough to make him reconsider the merits of Hugo Strange as a drinking buddy.

"Salmon-flavored vodka?"

"Da. From someplace called Alaska Distillery. Moscow tried this in 1972. Salmonka was called. This is no better."

"Then why are you drinking it?" Eddie asked.

"I see ad on back of magazine behind bar. I am curious so I ask Sly. He order it special, must buy whole case, he says. Cobblepot say now I must drink it. Sly no will serve me anything else until all salmon vodka is drunk."

Eddie made a mental note to watch what he said in front of Sly, and KGBeast agreed to let Eddie share his table as long as he drank a few shots. Eddie agreed, with the bonus that by the third shot, as the chilled vodka distilled with glacial ice slid away leaving the unmistakable whisper of smoked fish on his palate, he'd learned why there wasn't a free table to be had in the dining room.

* * *

Hackers are thief-like by nature. The computer, like the urban penthouse, has its secured locks and burglar alarms, all its goodies locked away behind thick titanium walls and tumblers, or perhaps a biometric keypad with a fingerprint scanner and a twelve-digit digital pin. It thinks it's very secure until you come along, knowing far more about how its locks actually work than it does, and a few minutes later, all of its treasures are yours for the taking. Since Oracle is the world's best hacker and Catwoman is the world's best thief, we hit it off the very first time we teamed up. I had no idea she'd been Batgirl, of course, so there was none of that awkward tension you get with crimefighting capes. By the time I found out about her past, it didn't matter. She was a sensible woman and we had a rapport. We could laugh together at the foibles of the silly little girls (Poor Stephanie) and wonder if we had ever been that confused.

So I didn't mind using Barbara for _Operation: Help Eddie_, but I did draw the line at Nightwing. So I had to wait outside their co-op until Dick left for patrol, and naturally he picked tonight to watch the end of a ballgame before setting out. So I stretched out on my gargoyle and waited. Eddie would just have to amuse himself at the 'Berg until I got what I came for.

* * *

Naturally, despite arriving late in the crush of the third seating, Catwoman had no trouble getting a premium booth in the dining room. There was a stag table in the back who would have been happy to vacate their place for the famous (and eye-catching) Rogue, but Raven gave that honor to a group of tourists. It added a special thrill to their glamorous night in the heart of Rogue Gotham. Raven then sent Dove who sent Wren who sent Peahen who sent Jose the busboy into the bar to tell Mr. Nigma he could join Catwoman in the dining room. As Eddie pushed his way through, the man who tried to order a drink from him earlier now told him they were ready for their check.

Eddie slumped into the booth like a desert nomad reaching the oasis, and Selina very kindly told him that he "looked like hell." Before he could bring her up to date on the curse's latest maneuvers to make him look like an idiot (_kuram na sm'ekh_, as his new drinking buddy might say), Oswald was waddling up to them looking insufferably pleased with himself.

"Catwoman, my felicitous feline, always displaying such discriminating discernment—KWAK! What a testament it is to your exceedingly good taste that you have chosen this particular night to visit us again—KWAKwakwakwak."

Selina had no idea what he was talking about, but she guessed it was connected to the crowd so she asked what was going on. Oswald went into ecstasies of kwaking at the chance to tell the story again: The grand piano had been delivered a few days ago by mistake. That afternoon, a perfectly ravishing creature had come to the bar to clear up the mistake. Her name was Tawny. Tawny Piculet… (A rapturous sigh here rather than more gratuitous kwaking, for a name of such distinction should be contemplated in silence.) Tawny and her sister Pitta were moving in down the block. Pitta was a lounge singer, hence the piano, while Tawny herself… (Once again a pause and a reverent sigh) …was a celebrity chef. "Celebrity," at least, in the minor arena of Star City. She and her sister had now come to Gotham to make a name for themselves in the greater world—_kwak_.

Oswald Cobblepot was not one to thumb his nose at opportunity, and he hired them both on the spot. Tawny set to work creating a new menu, and as fate would have it, a tour bus broke down right outside their door and a busload of tourists poured in to wait just as she finished a test batch of her gourmet mac n' cheese… Oswald paused here to eulogize about the mac n' cheese, the leeks Tawny added that brought such piquancy to the dish and the slice of truffle on the bottom which infused the surrounding cream with such flavor. By the time the replacement bus arrived, the tourists refused to leave. When they finally did go, they evidently spread the word at their respective hotels, for the phone started ringing within the hour. Every concierge in the city wanted a block of tables reserved for their guests, and there hadn't been an empty table since.

Selina looked skeptically from Oswald to Eddie and back to Oswald, as if she suspected a prank.

"Ozzy, you didn't buy a smart phone recently, did you?"

"Why would I do such a thing?" he sniffed. "I have a staff to take my messages-_kwak_."

"Just checking," she smiled.

He leaned in then and spoke confidentially:

"I was going to get a pair for Talon and Crow, for the _–kwak–_ convenience of our customers who have a _–kwakwak–_ a keen interest in sporting events. I thought perhaps the phone that Edward was getting. But when I went to the website, it seemed suspect. _ –kwakwak–_ 84 applications, wireless internet and satellite. Too good a deal for the price quoted. So I sent Talon to _–kwak–_ see what had 'fallen off the truck' at Willoughby's."

He toddled off, and Selina turned to Eddie with an I-told-you-so flourish as soon as he'd gone.

"There you are. Ozzy passed on the phone you bought. He's got your mojo."

Oswald stopped a waitress as she passed, took a bite of something off her tray, and assumed a rapturous expression as he chewed and swallowed.

"That's disturbing," Eddie said, seeing Oswald approach the piano only to have the singer beckon with her finger. (And what kind of a name was Pitta Piculet anyway?)

"It is," Selina agreed. Oswald Cobblepot, bloated with happiness, turning pink as a svelt lounge singer twirled his hair in her fingers, pinched his ear and crooned at him… "Disturbing" was the _mot juste_.

"I didn't think you believed in the curse," Eddie said, eyes riveted on the scene with morbid fascination.

"Well, I haven't completely dismissed the possibility that you're faking it, that you and Ozzy are making all this up just to pull my leg. But since I can't see what either of you would get out of it, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt."

"How nice of you," Eddie said flatly. It occurred to him that if he really wanted to convince her, he probably could. He could remove all doubt the way he'd convinced KGBeast: by cutting cards. He'd lost 14 consecutive hands and had to buy the entire case of salmon vodka as a result. (Although he had no intention of drinking the stuff like Beast was doing, that was just dumb.) Then he'd fumbled shuffling the cards, spraying half of them onto the floor, and when he bent to pick them up, he hit his head on the table… He decided it was fine to let Selina entertain a few doubts.

"Eddie, you know if it's true, if it really is the Grifter's Curse, then there's only one way to break it. You've got to con them back."

"And how do you suggest I do that, 'Lina? I don't know where these people are. That website could be out of L.A. or Metropolis or Vancouver for all I know."

"They're right here in Gotham," Selina smirked. "Which is good, because I don't relish the idea of getting on a plane with you."

"Does that mean you're going to help?"

"Of course I'm going to help, you knew that when you first called me. Now then, DreamFixer is one of a dozen websites owned by—"

"Hey, Cat, mind if I join you?"

* * *

Matt Hagen. Clayface. He was a regular at Vault when I was posing as queen of the underworld. Really attached himself to me, like a shapeshifting bodyguard/bouncer. Half the time he'd do it as a leopard or a cheetah, once as a pair of fully mained lions. It added a lot of panache to my appearance but I could never figure out what he got out of it. I know he didn't have a crush on me, it was nothing like that. The best I can figure, he just liked the company.

Eddie grumbled when he asked to join us. I could tell he wanted to get down to work on the DreamFixer problem and this was interruption. But it was my table, not his, and I couldn't help thinking there is always room for a _shapeshifter_ when you're planning a _con_. I slid over and made room, Matt sat down, and after a few complaints about the "Do you have a reservation" treatment from Raven (Matt had been an A-Lister in Hollywood and held on to the attitudes when it came to things like getting a table and being on the list), we brought him up to speed on the Eddie situation.

"Grifter's Curse? I never heard of such a thing. And it's real? I don't believe it."

"KGBeast didn't either," Eddie said. "So we cut cards. I lost. Fourteen consecutive times."

Hagen let out a low whistle, morphed into KGBeast and said "Dats is some fiercely bad luck, Comrade Riddles."

Not surprisingly, he drew the attention of the entire room. The tourist half applauded. The singer decided to reclaim their attention with a Tchaikovsky flourish over the piano keys, and in short, my quiet, inconspicuous booth at the Iceberg was no longer a fit place to plan a crime. I suggested we relocate, and Matt said he knew a place.

The Club Room was one of those spots hidden away in the forgotten cubby holes of SoHo that understood the importance of a discreet entrance that isn't particularly easy to find. We followed Matt—transformed from clay man to a suntanned Wall Street type for the occasion—past a pair of fake guard dogs, up a flight of stairs, behind a velvet rope and through a small unmarked door. Matt greeted the doorman as "Vinny," and Vinny admitted us to a homey room populated with large, comfy couches and leather armchairs, leopard-print throw pillows and splayed palm trees. Over each conversational nook hung an enormous black-and-white photograph: Paul McCartney at the piano, Jimmy Stewart in a fedora, Peter O'Toole in evening clothes looking very suave and holding a cigarette, a foursome of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and a couple horror stars from the 50s I didn't recognize. Matt led us through the main room to what was clearly his preferred spot: a side parlor with a big picture of the Bond-era Sean Connery in a bathtub, sipping a martini. I love Gotham, I really do. Places like The Club Room are one of the reasons.

We got comfortable and got down to work beginning with the intel Oracle dug up about the website that had taken Eddie's money…

* * *

"One of a dozen owned by Marcus and Paula Smek. They peddle electronics, most of which is several grades below what's advertised. Basically whatever they can pick up cheap anywhere in the world, repackage and sell elsewhere: obsolete DVD players from Tokyo become state of the art gaming systems in Philadelphia and BluRay players in London. The other sites push luxury bedding—most from sweat shops in Singapore, sporting goods—most made by political prisoners in China, and an assortment of counterfeit items from designer handbags to books and movies."

"It's seems so petty," Hagen said.

"Greedy and unimaginative," Nigma agreed. "Kind of thing that gives crime a bad name."

"Less work for us then," Selina smiled. "I don't know about you two, but 'rich and stupid' is my favorite combination. Greedy means they're going to swallow any tale we tell them. People see what they want to see. In this case, they'll see the money shining out there on the horizon and that's all they'll see. It's all they'll want to see, it's all they'll care about. And petty means they deserve it. These two definitely have it coming."

"Aren't we assuming quite a lot from the business practices of a website?" said Hagen.

"He's right. 'People see what they want to see,' 'Lina? Aren't you jumping to a lot of conclusions about this couple just because they don't defeat alarm systems and steal Picassos?"

"Or leave brainteasing clues for Batman," Hagen added, and Nigma scowled.

"I'm not jumping to conclusions," Selina purred. "I know them. Both of them. They're members at Bruce's country club. In fact, they're always trying to get me to play tennis. Insanely competitive. Type 3s. That's our in."

"Um, I don't follow," said Hagen.

"The Bruce Wayne crowd that flit around 'Lina since she took up with Mr. Moneybags fall into a number of categories," Eddie explained. "But don't try to keep track of the numbers because she keeps changing them."

"I do not," Selina laughed.

"She does," Eddie repeated, ignoring her and directing his words only to Matt Hagen. "First group had their eye on Wayne for themselves or their daughters. They're not too pleased that he's off the market, but they try to hide it since they figure 'Lina'll be deciding who gets an invite to all the Wayne shindigs from now on. Second group, they know she's broken into Buckingham Palace and had a go at the crown jewels, so—"

"It was Windsor Castle for a Rembrandt," Selina interrupted. "The crown jewels are in the Tower of London—"

"And you had a go at them _twice_," Eddie interrupted right back.

"Actually I think it was three times," Selina said under her breath, and her index finger twitched a few times over the next several minutes as she tried to work it out. Maybe it was four times, actually…

"Anyway, they know Catwoman steals things like Rembrandts and crown jewels, and they'd just love to imagine their own baubles are in the same league as the queen's. So whenever they see Selina, they make a big production auditioning their jewels. The third group—"

"That these Smek people are in," Matt said to show he was following.

"Actually, the third group is Richard Flay."

"The third group is one man?" Hagen said skeptically.

"He is in a category by himself, and we'll leave it that," Eddie said sourly, remembering Richard Flay's penchant for flirting with him whenever he showed up at society events.

"And the Smeks?" Matt asked. "They're the ones we're interested in, right? What category are they?"

"Hungry," Selina said coolly. "Some of the hungry ones are new money, some married into it. Some are just insecure. They're always looking for an angle or an edge. Like their knowing you is a means to an end, it's not a social exercise. It's all about what you can do for them."

"Producers," Matt said instantly.

"O-kay," Selina said uncertainly.

"Look on their friends as assets more than people?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, that's them," she nodded.

"Producers," he said again decisively. "People like that, you want to give them an opportunity to _use_ you. They'll eat that up every time. Bringing them a deal won't work, but if they spot it for themselves, if they figure out a way to take advantage…"

"Well, like I said, what they usually want from me is tennis," Selina smiled. "The others Eddie mentioned, they either focus on the fact that I'm with Bruce, or else if they see 'Catwoman,' they see 'jewel thief.' The Smeks are a little different. It hasn't escaped their attention that Catwoman is very athletic. They like idea of a doubles partner that can hold her own against Batman's right cross, who they can innocently introduce as 'Brucie Wayne's little friend' and have their mark write me off accordingly—right up until the moment I spin Dwight Raifford's serve back at him with the force of a razor-tipped batarang."

"A ringer," Matt laughed.

"Quite."

The waitress brought their drinks—except for Eddie's, which she got wrong. When she was gone, he spoke up: He didn't see how any of this could help him. He needed to _con_ the Smeks in order to get his mojo back. He couldn't just beat them at tennis. Matt, who had been offered a good few con artist parts in his day, was happy to explain:

"Selina is your roper. She's made first contact with The Mark through this tennis club. She will then introduce them to you, _ The Inside Man_. You, Inside Man, will tell them _The Tale_, the narrative of your con. Do you have something in mind?"

"I've an idea that I'm working on," Eddie murmured, with a winsome glance at Selina.

"Then all you need is a _Fixer_," Matt said smugly. "Someone to create the world of the con, the reality your mark will get caught up in. The fixer makes sure that, wherever your mark looks, your story holds up. You lay the bait, and..."

"Get hints," Eddie grinned.

"No! No hints, Nigma. None of your stupid riddles letting The Bat know what we're up to—"

"Easy, Matt," Selina said, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "It's an anagram. Get hints…"

Matt Hagen's mouth dropped open, completely confused.

"The sting," Selina whispered.

"Ah."

* * *

There were a few things I hadn't told Eddie about the Bristol Country Club. The land had originally belonged to the Van Schuyler family, aka Richard Flay's ancestors. It was at least a hundred years since they'd sold it off or donated it, however it came to be the grounds of the club… Point is, it was once _theirs, a_nd the remaining Van Schyler estate began at the north end of the gold course—that'd be the present day Flay estate, as in Richard Flay's house. I figured in Eddie's present state of mind, he was better off not knowing. I hadn't decided if there actually was a curse or if it was just Eddie's belief making him into a disaster magnet, but I knew the increased likelihood of running into Richard would make him a nervous wreck either way. And I needed his best game if this con was going to work.

I also didn't tell him that if there _were_ functioning curses in operation, there might be one hanging over me where the Bristol Country Club was concerned. Before Bruce, it was just a series of failed robberies and one garden variety bad date. The robberies seemed like improbably bad luck at the time, but now of course, I can chalk them up to the bland Mr. Wayne yawning in the corner, consoling himself after a bad putt on the 12th green. The date, well, Wall Street types do like to brag about their portfolios and this one was a wine snob. He picked Chateau de Poulignac to show off, and I spent the evening staring at a picture of Francois's house on the label. One coincidence like that does not a curse make.

Since Bruce: it was at the Bristol where he introduced me to the fop personality without any warning or explanation. That was fun. Gladys Ashton-Larraby chased me into the ladies room to make sure I knew her canary diamonds were catworthy. There was a garden party where everyone who'd been to Dick and Barbara's wedding had to tell "that priceless story" about the Mrs. Wayne mix-up… And finally, it was at the Bristol Country Club where Richard Flay reminded me that the MoMA was getting ready to reopen, which ignited a lot of the unresolved Bat/Cat issues.

So nothing that extraordinary, nothing that screamed jinx-hex-curse, beware-beware-beware. It's just wasn't the most encouraging history one could hope for when kicking off a con there, a form of criminal enterprise in which confidence—not to mention luck— play a certain role. I figured the less Eddie knew on that score, the better. But I did tell him what he _needed_ to know, like _how to get there_. Consider my pique when, sitting in the lounge ten minutes past the hour he was supposed to meet me, my cell rang. It was Alfred.

_..:: There is a Mr. Nigma here to see you, Miss. When I informed him that you were not at home, he said that he was aware of that fact, as he was on his way to meet you. He expressed a desire that I should call you and convey the message that he is lost. ::.._

Throughout this pretty speech, I heard Eddie's voice pipe up occasionally in the distance, saying "Lina…" "Lina…" "tried to call" "stupid phone won't work" and finally "Lake." The last was explained by:

_..:: I have consulted the directions he is holding on what appears to be the reverse of a greasy receipt from a fast food restaurant, Miss. I regret to say they do not lend credence to his tale. If followed, these directions would deposit him into the water trap on the 9th green. ::.._

"I imagine that's why he's lost, Alfred. Why don't you just give him the proper directions."

_..:: Very good, Miss. ::.._

"Your butler doesn't like me," Eddie announced when he finally arrived.

"Probably not," I laughed. Alfred tends to echo Bruce's view of most people, particularly the Rogues. Even though Eddie is far less deadly than the typical villain, Bruce's attitude towards him is… _spikier_ than with the others, particularly since he worked out the secret. At least that was the reason I assumed Alfred had been a little abrupt, until I saw the directions Eddie had to begin with. It was scribbled down exactly the way I had told him, except there was a grease spot where he wrote the turnoff onto Country Club Drive. Missing that turn but following the rest of the directions he'd taken down, he would've continued onto the Wayne property and been driving in the general vicinity of... No wonder Alfred was suspicious.

I was starting to believe in the curse. Messing up the directions, that could happen to anyone. Messing them up in that _ particular way_… Then again, as unlucky as Eddie had been, he hadn't make the absolute worst blunder possible. If he'd continued on with these directions instead of breaking off and going to the house to ask for help, he could have driven right past the entrance to the Batcave. That would've tripped about sixty alarms and brought down the wrath of the Psychobat in an epoch-making manner.

Eddie had actually dodged a bullet. It was the first ray of hope since this whole miserable business began. And the unkindest cut of all was that I couldn't tell him.

* * *

To be continued…


	3. The Tale

**Electron 29**  
_Chapter 3: The Tale  


* * *

_

The Bristol Country Club is one of those places that have institutionalized resistance to change. Naturally, there are some advancements they have to accept if they want to go on existing in the modern world, and in order to live with themselves for compromising on the stuff that matters, they dig in deeper on the stuff that doesn't. Maybe they have to hire the Irish and put an unsightly exit sign over the door, but tennis whites are white, damnit. None of that new-fangled colored trim.

So Eddie and I sat in the lounge beside the tennis courts without so much as a thread of green on his person to help anyone identify him. We were playing backgammon to pass the time, and I was trying to bait his witty wordsmith to come out and play. I was worried that with no question mark tie clip, no bowler and cane, and no signature green, it might be difficult for the Smeks to make the connection right away. I certainly didn't want to _introduce_ him as Edward "The Riddler" Nigma, so a little riffing on the terminology of tennis as they came up to the table would not have been amiss. Unfortunately, the mojo vacuum had reached his language centers. "To write with a broken pencil is pointless" and "A will is a dead give-away" were the best he could come up with, and neither were appropriate to the occasion. We had to trust to luck that Smeks would recognize him sooner rather than later, and luck wasn't exactly Eddie's lapdog at the moment. Woof.

At least they arrived on time, and as expected, they came straight up to the table when they saw me dressed to play. I introduced Eddie and got the excuses out of the way:

"Some mix-up at the pro shop. I was sure Alfred had reserved us a court for today, but it looks like somebody got the date wrong. They have us down for next Wednesday."

It brought the desired effect. Paula _insisted_ I take her place playing with Marcus against the Ambertons. Her arm had been bothering her _all morning_, and she would have given _anything_ to get out of the game, but she didn't want to let her husband down. This way I could get a good game in, and she would be so _happy_ to keep my friend company…

I refused once, just so Marcus could get in on the act: _It's always such fun playing mixed doubles with a new partner. Paula had quite a good backhand, but everyone knew that by now, as well as her penchant to tucker out after the first set._ He said this right in front of her, but she just smiled. They really were quite a pair, the way they worked together to maneuver me into playing for them. I finally agreed, as long as Eddie didn't mind, and naturally he was more than happy to have a nice chat with Paula while we played.

* * *

After the tennis game broke up, Eddie and Selina had lunch in the dining room so Paula would have a handy visual aid as she briefed her husband.

"Just look at him, Marcus. He's completely infatuated with her. He couldn't be more obvious about it if he tried."

Marcus glanced around for a waiter so he could study Edward Nigma without being conspicuous. He didn't see anything he would describe as "obviously infatuated." Nigma was _looking_ at Selina quite a lot, but they were having lunch. Still, he didn't have the benefit of talking to the guy for over an hour the way Paula had. Paula had a good eye for these things.

"He knows he can't compete with Wayne's billions," Paula narrated while, across the dining room, Eddie was telling Selina about advancements in robotics. "Not yet, anyway. But he knows that's the point of attraction, and I'm convinced he plotting some coup to make a fortune of his own and win her away."

Once again, Marcus did his "Look for a waiter" maneuver, but this time he accidentally made eye contact with one and had to order a bowl of French onion soup. The exercise did allow him to take a long, calculated look at Edward Nigma, which he pondered through the next course. He certainly wasn't much to look at compared to Wayne. Trophy women might not care about that if a man was rich enough, but if she already had an $8 billion GQ cover like Bruce Wayne, she wouldn't be likely to trade him in for an eight billion dollar Edward Nigma… or even a nine billion dollar one. Unless…

"It's not enough to become rich himself," he confided, leaning across the table to share the revelation in a hushed, oniony whisper. "He has to be planning to ruin Wayne as well." He sat back, contemplating the words with an excited glint in his eye. There were possibilities in that. Very profitable possibilities. "Tell me everything," he said emphatically.

"Well, like I said, he's besotted with Selina. Seems to have a very high opinion of himself—his intelligence, that is—but I don't think it's ego. He does seem to have the technical expertise to back it up. He was telling me about some article he'd read about a new 'robot skin' with nerve endings that send signals to a microchip, I couldn't follow a word of it. Like talking to that Wozniak character at the Snow Ball last year."

Marcus's eyes darted back and forth with ratlike cunning until a kick from under the table drew his attention. Selina and Nigma were standing and he had to assume a guileless expression to wave goodbye. As soon as they were gone, his eyes darkened again to twin bulbs pulsing with aroused greed.

"So Nigma's a tech genius… He sees Bruce as a rival. Bruce runs a tech company…"

"Inherited," Paula reminded him. "Bruce inherited what he's got. He's not self-made and certainly not the sharpest knife in the drawer…"

Marcus tuned her out. He didn't consider Bruce Wayne stupid in that way. Nothing about the way he ran the business was dumb. He'd been a wild playboy, sure, and one was apt to say some less-than-brilliant things with a jeroboam of Tattinger in his system. But a young man enjoying his fortune, that really wasn't _stupid_.

No, where Wayne slipped in Marcus Smek's view was in buying into all that noblesse oblige crap. The ones who inherited their fortunes tended to do that: all the long range planning, technology that made people's lives better, _partnerships_ with the city, _ partnerships_ with the employees, as if we were all in this together… Not just giving it lip service to please the plebs but really _believing_ there was any way to make a buck in this world besides taking it from somebody else. That's where Wayne was stupid, and where the self-made like Lex Luthor and Marcus Smek… possibly one day this Edward Nigma… would beat them every time.

"We need to meet him again," Marcus said decisively.

"Casual/accidental or invite him for cocktails?" Paula asked.

Marcus bit his lip and considered… "Both," he said.

* * *

Alfred naturally planned to inform Bruce that one of his enemies had been in the manor that morning. Edward Nigma might be Miss Selina's friend and she may have confirmed all those elements of his story that were confirmable, but that in no way negated Alfred's duty. He would make Bruce aware of that fact as well. There was, in Alfred's view, no reason to suspect Nigma's story was anything other than what he claimed: he was meeting Selina at the country club, took down faulty directions and got lost… But then, The Riddler was a sufficiently crafty foe that, if he were up to something, one would expect his story to check out. He would fashion his excuse around such facts as would hold up to reasonable scrutiny. It wasn't Alfred's place to be convinced and dismiss the episode on his own authority. He would lay all the facts before Master Bruce and allow him decide for himself.

What he could not lay before Master Bruce was a slip of paper that had fallen from Nigma's pocket when he produced the slip with his faulty directions. Alfred hadn't noticed it and neither had Nigma. Bruce noticed when he got home, picked it up from the floor of the foyer and tossed it in the waste basket without a thought. He enjoyed an early dinner with Selina, went down to the cave, and began changing into costume. He had all but the cape and cowl in place when he heard the soft cough from outside the costume vault.

A slow burn ignited behind his eyes as Alfred told him about Nigma being in the house, but reason was quick to squelch any excesses of emotion that might impede his reason. By the time Alfred finished the story, Bruce remembered the slip of paper and was racing up the stairs to retrieve it from the wastebasket.

It was a debit card receipt from someplace called The Club Room. The word was underlined, and on the flip side was a rudimentary sketch of a closet with several lines scribbled underneath, one after another, like revisions of a work in progress:

_No room for a suit? _  
_There's always room for a suit._  
_Always room for a **black** suit._ The last with the word "room" scratched out. And finally:  
_Always space for a black suit._

"What the hell?" Bruce breathed. Alfred was just entering the foyer, having taken the longer route up from the cave. He started to speak, but Bruce cut him off abruptly. "You said he was headed for the Bristol Country Club?" he spat.

When Alfred confirmed the location, Bruce began removing his gauntlet.

"Lay out some evening clothes, Alfred. I won't be patrolling until later."

* * *

The night Batman recovered the Hapsburg dagger, Catwoman was livid. She read Penguin the riot act and swore he would never fence so much as a gold ingot of her loot again. Today, she would have to admit that she'd got more fun out of the loss than she would have had with the cash. She had held it over Oswald's head for years, graciously allowing him to deduct her bar tab from the sum he owed. Whenever she wanted something from him, she would knock a few grand off the total like she was doing him a favor.

Now it was over. With the way Oswald's luck was going, he might've refused a smaller deal. And Selina didn't want to be nickeled and dimed negotiating night by night and table by table. She wanted to make sure the people on her list could get a table at the Iceberg whenever they wanted one: Eddie, Hagen, The Smeks, and of course Selina herself. To obtain that without question, she was prepared to wipe out the entire debt and pretend the whole botched fence never happened.

She gave Raven a few bills on her way out, figuring that Eddie and Hagen probably wouldn't think to and Oswald would simply forward the instructions without passing along any of the financial inducements. Then she went off to prowl. The next step was Eddie's responsibility. The Inside Man had to tell The Tale…

* * *

Matt Hagen was not impressed by the other shape-shifters he'd met over the years. From what he'd seen, the technical ability to transform one's appearance wasn't worth much without an actor's skill shaping the character underneath. He had three new characters to work on today, and it wasn't even Christmas.

He started with Ramos, darkening and lightening the skin as if he were fine-tuning a television. He flattened the nose a little, widened the eyes, flipped back and forth between black hair and brown. Finally, when he was happy with the result, he regressed the whole thing to an 8-year old boy. He examined himself in the mirror, sprouted a little to appear, perhaps, ten years old… Eleven? No, ten was better… He added a Pee Wee Football uniform… then a leg cast and crutches… A growth spurt transformed him to an acne-ridden goth kid at fifteen… He experimented with a few different piercings and deciding the left ear, right nostril and upper lip would give the most offense, kept those holes as he advanced again to a cleancut twenty-three. He tweaked the military haircut, once… twice… and happy with the result, he advanced again into the thirties… added the cigarettes, shriveling the upper lip to a dried cracked appearance and sucking a little color out of the skin. He deepened the five o'clock shadow… let it sprout into a full day's growth… two days… three… then 'shaved'… He nodded, satisfied, and went to work on Phillip Vries.

* * *

The Smeks arrived at the Iceberg Lounge just as Nigma predicted, almost to the minute. Raven pretended to size them up and gave them a table that was presumably left free for walk-ins who struck the right chord. Eddie was seated a few feet away, tucking in to the famous mac n' cheese. Since he predicted their arrival time so accurately, he could have timed his own arrival for later, so the Smeks could have appropriated him at once without having to wait until he finished his dinner. But he figured since he had a guaranteed table now, he may as well take full advantage. Gourmet mac and cheese not only anagrammed as "A Cat-Rogue Scheme-Mend," it was also, quite honestly, the best thing he'd ever eaten. The leeks, the truffle, the little sprinkle of panko breadcrumbs… Mmmm…. Panko breadcrumbs. "Purr" was in there, as was Bank, Bad men, Omen…

"Edward! What a coincidence!"

Eddie produced a surprised smile. His savoring of the meal of a lifetime would have to wait.

* * *

"Phillip Vries, Ph.D," Barbara said as she typed.

"Right, search engines, Wikipedia, a bio on the Hudson U website and a couple academic papers," Selina said.

"Publish or perish," Barbara winked. "Subject?"

"Anything to do with copper or silicon, electrons, microcircuitry."

"Does it have to make sense?"

"No, lay readers. They won't have any clue what it's saying, as long as it looks academic."

"Roger. And my payment?"

Catwoman reached into her loot sack and withdrew the precious items:

"One pint Haagen Dazs White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle," she announced as Barbara's cat Bytes jumped off her lap and started head-rubbing Catwoman's boot. "One Chocolate Peanut Butter. They also had a limited edition flavor: Bananas Foster, so I made an executive decision and got you that instead of the Java Chip."

"Pleasure doing business with you, Catwoman."

Selina looked down at the cat, who was now augmenting the head-bumps with an insistent purring. She shook her head and headed for the window, deciding to hold on to the catnip treat she'd brought him. He was obviously spoiled enough sharing Barbara's ice cream.

* * *

Once again, the Iceberg proved to be too public a place to have a private conversation, so Eddie led the Smeks back to The Club Room after dinner. Seated again in the discreet side-parlor under the photo of Sean Connery, Eddie held his ground through the first half hour of subtle probing.

Paula was getting impatient. Marcus was being a bit too subtle and it was getting them nowhere. Throwing caution to the wind, she said how nice it was to see Selina back at the club again. She was just saying to Marcus the other day how they never seemed to run into her anymore, and Marcus said it was because she'd been flying all over the country with Bruce for all those town hall meetings he was doing for WE…

It was a very odd thing to say. A suspicious person might think Paula had a strange fixation on Selina, but she was betting a man who was in love with her wouldn't see anything unusual in Paula finding her as interesting as he did. As she hoped, Nigma did not appear suspicious and it gave the conversation the necessary turn:

"Interesting to see her getting so involved in Wayne Enterprises, isn't it?" Marcus beamed. "Always appealing when a woman has a good head for business." This with an affectionate dab at his wife's hand. "Though I must say, I doubt Bruce himself understands anything that goes on in the Tech subsidiary. Just between us, I always thought the man was a bit of a fool. What a savvy woman like Selina sees in him, I can't imagine."

"Oh come now, Marcus, surely you can imagine," Paula smiled. "The appeal is as clear as all those zeroes on his bank statement."

It did the trick. Sensing such sympathetic listeners—people who clearly appreciated Wayne's shortcomings as well as his beloved Selina's many fine qualities—Edward Nigma unburdened himself. His passionate attachment to her and his plan to destroy Bruce Wayne and achieve a WayneTech style empire for himself in the process was very much what Marcus guessed, although the details, the details were beyond non-Rogue imaginings:

"You don't get to be a criminal mastermind without learning how to build your schemes on a proper foundation," Eddie explained proudly. "As you may know, it was microelectronics that made WayneTech the powerhouse that it is."

"Microchips," Paula nodded knowledgably.

"Much smaller than that, dear lady," Eddie smiled, assuming a patient professor expression. "The innovation that made Wayne is actually a microscopic component of the integrated circuits themselves. As you may know, the integrated circuit or microchip is at the heart of everything electronic, from computers to cell phones."

He paused here with a malicious glint in his eye as he recalled one particular phone that these Smeks had sold him.

"Originally, chips were made from aluminum. It was more compatible with the rest of the integrated circuit technology. But it was BIG—molecularly speaking that is. The nature of a circuit, you want the current to flow. Compared to other materials, aluminum is very resistant to the flow of electricity. So you need more of it. That means you need more _room_ for it. By the 1990s, aluminum was the blockage holding back technology. You just couldn't make things small enough when it had to hold all this hulking mass of aluminum circuits."

"You see, doesn't he remind you of Woz," Paula said brightly.

Marcus ignored her.

"Please go on, Edward."

"Do you really want to hear this?" Eddie asked, pretending he had let himself go and was reluctant to bore his new friends any further—and enjoying the unguarded enthusiasm of their nods for him to continue.

He stalled and ordered another round of drinks. Once again, the waitress got his order wrong, but Eddie didn't mind (even though whatever she brought him this time contained an inordinate amount of tequila—blech). He was getting quite enough stimulation from the Smeks' obvious impatience. He let them dangle a few minutes more before continuing:

"Well, as I was saying, aluminum circuitry could not get small enough to run the ever shrinking electronics. Another material was needed, and everyone knew copper would be ideal. It's amazingly conductive. A neutral atom with twenty-nine electrons, and the last one, number twenty-nine moves easily to the next atom unimpeded. Other materials, the transfer of electrons has to happen more _specifically_ by the electrons hopping from one atom to the next, but with copper… electron twenty-nine is predisposed to move freely. Copper's lower resistance would allow for much smaller wires, 1/1000 the size of a human hair. The resulting chips would run exponentially faster and use substantially less power. There was just one catch."

"Figures," Paula said, while her husband said "Isn't there always?"

Eddie smiled at the latter, since he'd worded his remark as a question.

"Riddle me this: What was the one drawback with copper? What was the one puzzle that needed to be solved in order to use it? Answer: If it came into contact with the actual devices, it would change its properties. So it wouldn't behave as the integrated circuit was designed to behave."

"Damn!" Marcus exclaimed, caught up in the excitement of the story for reasons he couldn't quite exclaim. His wife gave him a puzzled look.

"So the puzzle the tech world faced at this juncture was this: How to protect the silicon in a microchip from the effects of copper circuitry? It was WayneTech that solved that riddle."

Marcus and Paula's mouths dropped open in unison.

"They developed a microscopic barrier, a barrier _ layer_ that would keep the copper sort of on top of the devices, and so it wouldn't be able to get down to the actual device layers."

Marcus and Paula looked at each other, then back at Nigma.

"Intel, ATI, Sony, LexCorp, virtually everyone making viable microchips in the last decade is using the WayneTech process. And if anything were to… _nullify_ the process, cause the barrier to dissolve…"

"The copper reacts with the devices and they stop working—My God, the failure of computers and phones and—the destruction would massive, cataclysmic."

"If taken to an extreme," Nigma said quickly. He wasn't a terrorist, he didn't want power grids to shut down, hospitals plunged into darkness, or airplanes deprived of ground support midflight. What kind of sociopathic monster did these people take him for? "All that's necessary is for a spate of small product failures, here and there, that will diminish confidence."

"Like what happened to Toyota," Marcus nodded.

"Exactly, except this won't be just one company's products. At first, no one will know what's gone wrong. Sixty iPods, laptops and phones that don't seem to have anything in common all go on the fritz at once. What the fuck—oh, excuse me." He glanced apologetically at Paula, who waved him off with an amused grin. It was rather amusing that a man casually plotting to bring down a financial empire would think he'd given offense saying "fuck."

"So first response, nobody knows what's happened," Marcus said, working it out. "Devices failing from different manufacturers… Then someone connects the dots. All the different makers used this same process making the microchips. Wayne's barrier doesn't do the job it's supposed to… He'd become the worst corporate villain since Halliburton."

"Halliburton, BP and LexCorp combined," Eddie said. "The companies that used his process would be lining up to sue him—and desperate for a new process they could trust."

"When there's nothing actually wrong with the Wayne process," Paula said. "You could conceivably change a few words, update the packaging, and sell it right back to them."

Eddie smiled, showing more teeth than were necessary—here, surely, was the mindset that had stuck him with that worthless second-generation, Japanese-kink-app phone.

"The NigmaSolve Solution," he said. "The flagship product of NigmaSolve Inc."

Marcus smiled too. He didn't know if Eddie's scheme would actually work as far as making his fortune, or if that goal was achieved, if 'NigmaSolve Inc.' would win him Selina as he seemed to assume. What Marcus did know was that Wayne stock was sure to take a tumble in the process, and that would make him a fortune regardless.

* * *

Blotchy skin, brittle hair and nails, just a touch of red on the nose without going all W.C. Fields… Now a little bloated, flabby muscles but without becoming a caricature… That's what the rest of them did, bad actors. Went all movie of the week on the horrors of alcoholism and lost the character in their determination to make a point. Matt liked to push details like that until it crossed the line, and then dial it back. Dial it back a little more… and… there! It was just about… PERFECT!

He turned to see his profile in the mirror and dropped his "alcoholic's ass" an extra inch. All he had to do now was get used to the walk that went with it. He took the body for a stroll through the neighborhood, and found himself near The Club Room. He decided to drop in, see if Vinnie would admit a dusty academic like Vries. Nigma would be long gone with the marks, so it would be perfectly safe to show up in the Vries persona. After all, the guy was a drinker, it only made sense to bend his elbow a little. Get the feel of drinking in this body, get the feel of the glass in that hand. What an alcoholic must feel holding a glass like that… feel when…

Matt/Vries got as far as the fake dogs, but rather than turn, he kept on walking without slowing his step when he saw tell-tale movement on a rooftop up the street. It was a cape. It was a _scalloped_ cape. Matt KNEW that cape, he had MIMICKED that cape. It was Batman's cape. What was Batman's cape doing up the street from The Club Room not twenty-four hours after he'd brought Selina and Nigma there?

Nigma! That squirrelly weasel Nigma!

* * *

To be continued…


	4. Confidence

**Electron 29**  
_Chapter 4: Confidence  


* * *

_

As a working cat burglar, I had my own set of identities and disguises long before getting sucked into Team Batman. I prefer those ladies to Georgina Barnes and Angelica Laperm, the identities I took on to help Bruce against Eddie and Ra's respectively. But this morning, Angelica was the best choice. She was already known at Hudson University, already established as a Wayne Foundation suit who had some role in deciding what types of research got funding. She might not have the final say on individual grants, but she would be recognized from the energy symposium: a half-remembered face and a vague association that she had something to do with the research grants. That alone was a point in her favor, even without the wardrobe issue. It had been a few years since I'd posed as Genevieve, Janis or Catherine and not only were their clothes a little snug here and there thanks to Alfred's cooking, they were also out of date. All in all, it was easier to take Angelica's wig out of the closet and tape myself down into that Victor/Victoria body.

There's a food court under the Student Union. Matt and I had agreed to meet there, and since neither of us knew what the other looked like today, I snapped a picture of myself with my phone and sent it to him. I looked around, saw a few people texting or talking on their phones, but only one looked old enough to be Dr. Vries. He didn't seem to be looking around for me though. There was a sub place behind him, and I decided their coffee must be as good as the donut stand everyone was queued for. So Angelica walked past him on her way to get her morning jolt, and sure enough, just as I passed, I heard "Angelina? I thought that was you."

Hookup achieved, I corrected him on my name and we found our way to the Endicott Building. A lot of the science departments at Hudson are headquartered in newer buildings that… well, let's say _eschew_ the architectural style of an Ivy League campus in favor of that found in a 1950s cafeteria. Endicott was not one of those buildings: prestige lobby, dark woods, marble and terrazzo, a geometric pattern on the floor that formed a sunburst around the reception desk. The woman seated there could have stepped out of central casting for a prim, delicate, overly-refined librarian.

We asked for the research department, and she asked who in particular we wanted to see. I knew from Barbara's research that there was a Dr. Underwood, but I pretended to search for the name in my papers in order to flash the Wayne Foundation letterhead a few times. The hiatus give Matt a few minutes to chat with the woman, and he was wonderfully charming. By the time I found the right papers with Dr. Underwood's name and office number, he had learned that the very pretty brooch she was wearing was a gift from her daughter ("She has very good taste.") for her fiftieth birthday ("No! You're kidding me."). Since he flatly refused to believe her, because she didn't look a day over forty-five, and since the birthday was five years ago, she was quite pleased by this Phillip Vries, Ph.D. ("Have you got a mad scientist around here deveoping an anti-aging potion? You must allow me to get some for my wife.") and apt to remember his name as she wrote it on his visitor's badge.

She gave us directions to Dr. Underwood's office, and we went on our way. At least we started too. We passed a maintenance man in the corridor and Matt told me to wait as he headed back towards the front entrance.

* * *

Edward Nigma had never been sensitive to slights from the Gotham Post. He didn't like it when they made him over as a GenX Metrosexual with skin paler than Joker's, but on the whole he didn't care what the tabloid said since no one with six functioning brain cells would stoop to reading it. If it was in the Times or the Gothamite maybe, but the Post? No. It stung for a day and was forgotten—usually. The one exception was the time they intimated that he built one of his most complex schemes based on Jonathan Crane's psychological profiling of the participants. Jonathan Crane! A fear fetishist with a chemistry set who liked Miley Cyrus. Puh-lease.

It was true Eddie had never wasted his time or money getting his knowledge sanctified with an advanced degree, but he could _ read_. That was the only skill he needed to acquire a doctoral-level understanding of psychology, sociology and behavioral science—and to understand that, of the advanced degrees at his disposal, Crane was the least useful unless you were staking everything on Pavlovian avoidance. (And did anyone really need an expert to anticipate a lab rat's response to the orange panel that had already shocked its little white feet 187 times?)

If Eddie did feel himself in need of an expert, either Harley Quinn or Hugo Strange would be better sources—but Eddie knew he had a better understanding than either of them. He knew, for example, that the Smeks would keep him waiting this morning. They knew it was to be an important day. They knew it was going to be a full day. And yet, that alpha dog mentality would compel Marcus Smek to keep him waiting almost half an hour past the appointed time.

He knew it was going to happen, but still he was annoyed.

* * *

Carlotta was still glowing from the encounter with Dr. Vries when Felipe came into the lobby. The facilities boys were supposed to stay out of the reception areas at this time of day, and he obviously knew he was bending the rules by the sprint in his walk. He was trying to get this over with as quickly as he could.

"Bad news," he said hurriedly. "Safety inspector on the campus today. Ordered a spot check on a few smoke detectors. Picked this building, sorry."

Carlotta's face fell. She started to complain about the inconvenience. They just had a fire drill last week, and there was always _days_ of fallout afterwards whenever these professors had to leave their laboratories unlocked, even for a few minutes. They went around for a week insisting chemicals were missing, test papers stolen, laptops compromised…

Felipe was quick to calm her down. It didn't need to be like that. They just needed to test one smoke detector in each building the inspector picked. If a lab was empty—if someone had called in sick, for instance, or if anybody was on vacation this week, they wouldn't have to disturb anybody at all. Avoid all the noise and interrupting a class…

* * *

Eddie also knew when the Smeks finally showed, Paula would make the apologies while Marcus acted like it was a guy thing. Like a dog apologizing for lifting his leg on a tree. Only a woman would think to make excuses. Men are men, and men run late.

Eddie tried anagramming the phrase while he was waiting, just in case Marcus happened to say it. But with this wretched curse hanging over him, he couldn't come up with anything pithy. And if he had, the curse would probably prevent Marcus saying anything and giving Eddie the opening to use it.

When the Smeks finally did arrive, they behaved exactly as expected. Paula apologized first thing, and then looked at his car like it didn't quite measure up to her standards. She covered it (late and poorly) with a plastic smile, and got into the passenger seat leaving a little trail of some fruity perfume in Eddie's face as he held the door for her.

* * *

"Laboratory 6 on the third floor," Matt said when he got back. "We'll set everything up in there, have it all to ourselves."

We found the lab easily enough. I took care of the locks (drawers and cabinets as well as the door) while Matt unpacked the set dressing he'd smuggled in inside his... clay. Barbara had outdone herself, taking pictures of the inside of her computer and running them through enough Photoshop filters to make them look interesting, like some kind of time-lapse heat-imaging study. Matt had also stopped in the book store and got himself a coffee mug with the university seal. He sent me to find a coffee machine and fill it with an inch of liquid. When I returned, he produced a bottle of Wild Turkey and added a good helping to the mug, then hid the bottle behind the Merck Index on the bookshelf behind the desk.

Once his stage was set, I stopped by reception on my way out and told the nice woman that I had to get back to the office—but things were certainly looking promising for the renewal of Dr. Underwood's grant. Dr. Vries would still be some time going over the data, of course, and he would have a few colleagues coming by later.

I called Eddie with directions to the lab and, since I had time to kill, dropped by the library's Rare Book Room. They have a first edition of _The Jungle Book_ with a few hand-written pages of the manuscript—including an early draft from the chapter entitled "Tiger! Tiger!" I'd always kept it in reserve, in case I was really stuck for a cat-crime. It was a decent prize, but the security for the rare book room at a university library isn't exactly catworthy. Still, since I had some time on my hands, I figured I may as well go see it again. And, to satisfy a cat's curiosity, I'd see if they had improved its security at all.

* * *

Eddie led the Smeks across the Hudson Campus like a man who'd been making the trek daily for a month. He presented himself at the reception desk, and as soon as he mentioned Dr. Vries, the receptionist handed him a visitor's pass. He was expected, and as long as the Smeks would be staying with him, they wouldn't have to bother with additional badges.

It was all quite impressive until they actually reached the lab. There was a faint odor in the room. At first it just seemed like a laboratory smell, but something about Phillip Vries set Marcus's mind tiptoeing in another direction. It wasn't a conscious process. Consciously, he was giving the man his full attention:

_"The Wayne process for creating a micro-barrier between copper circuitry and the device layer in a microchip is naturally protected by international patents, but patents are a construct of the economic world. They have nothing to do with science. For example, let's say you have a nuclear reactor. Put it under water…"_

He should have been impressive, but somehow he wasn't.

_"Water goes in one end, steam comes out the other side…. pshshsht, it's a submarine. Or: you have a nuclear reactor. Air comes rushing in the front, it's heated by the nuclear reaction and goes out the back… vrrrrooom, it's an airplane. Or: you have a nuclear reactor…_

He had information, understanding, even a trace of passion, but somehow, it wasn't going anywhere…

_"Hydrogen goes through it… Zoom! It's a rocket. To a patent office, these are all different things requiring individual patents. To a scientist, they are different applications for the same basic thing…"_

Marcus didn't think it was inertia. He detected traces of real ambition in the man. The slides and photographs proliferating the room all hinted at purpose and desire, and a cursory web search had unearthed more than a dozen academic papers with the most bewilderingly impressive titles.

_"The flipside is also true. There can be different ways of achieving the same effect. Wayne has one particular method of creating a barrier inside a microchip, that isn't to say it is the only way. There are any number of methods to affix copper to atoms to other substances."_

It was almost as if there a vacuum inside the guy, something holding him in place despite all the drive and ability. All his attempts at forward motion had to fight against it—

"But nobody is going to be interested in a new process if they're happy with the old one," Nigma interjected. "Which brings us to the Mote-Erode. Without that as step one, there's no point in step two."

Vries obviously didn't like that. He shot Nigma a look of palpable contempt.

"There is always a _point_ in discovery," he said emphatically. "It _is_, for its own sake. The purpose is to learn. To understand. Regardless of whether there is an immediate practical application, regardless of commercial uses…"

Marcus's attention wandered, and as he surveyed the room, his nostrils flared as he stifled the urge to sigh. Ivory tower types, they never came to the point quickly. Not really their fault, since they didn't know what the point _was_. Ultimately, that's just the way Marcus wanted it: it meant they didn't recognize the dollar and cents value of what they had. But it also meant that, in order to get your hands on it without tipping them off, you had to sit through an awful lot of bullshit.

Again his nostrils flared—and like an electron of some particularly conductive material, he experienced a sudden leap of understanding connecting a current of related thoughts. That smell in the lab, there was (Could he be imagining it? No, there was) a very faint trace of bourbon…. And the mystery of Phillip Vries was solved.

"The device Mr. Nigma has named 'The Mote-Erode' will, in fact, dissolve the Wayne barrier separating the copper and device layers within a microcircuit," Vries was saying as he stood up, walked to one of the long work tables, and while his body blocked the view of his hand, he subtly extended the tip of his finger and thumb to resemble a gold metal key. He slid this into the lock on the worktable drawer and opened it. If you'd like to see the prototype," he said, taking a small black box out of the drawer and bringing it back to the desk. "Oh don't worry, it's not turned on. Any electronics you have with you now are perfectly safe. It takes approximately four hours to charge for roughly ten minutes use. Has a radius of 120 centimeters or just under four feet."

"It's going to be hard to do much damage with that," Marcus noted.

"We don't want to do much damage," Nigma reminded him. "Just enough."

"I was told these parameters were sufficient," Dr. Vries said, looking from one to the other.

"They are," Nigma said emphatically. "Can we see a demonstration?"

Dr. Vries smiled and suggested Mr. Nigma and Mr. and Mrs. Smek step back at least four feet to protect any electronics they had with them. He then "unlocked" a deep drawer in the lower half of the desk. When his hand was completely out of sight, it sprouted a three-layered object that resembled a thin ice cream sandwich made from orange and silver metal separated by a filling of clear semi-gelatinous lucite. He set it on the desk and placed the black box beside it.

"This is obviously much larger than a real chip," Vries explained. "It's made so you can clearly see the circuitry layer," he pointed to the very thin sheet of orange metal on the top. "The Wayne barrier in the center—even this size, it's not to scale; the barrier is much thinner—and the device layer. Now…" He used both thumbs to activate something on the back side of the black box. "We wait."

Ten minutes is a long time for people like Marcus and Paula Smek to stand in silence watching two inanimate objects do nothing. Their attention was apt to wander… and since there was nothing particularly interesting in the room for it to wander to, their minds drifted elsewhere—and both started as a very soft –_clpt_–pulled their attention back to thedesk. There, the copper had fallen through the vanished Lucite-gelatin and came into contact –_clpt_– with the silver.

"Voila," Dr. Vries said proudly. He felt a soft vibration in the fold of his clay that he used as a breastpocket. It was his phone—which, the black box obviously would have corrupted if it did what he claimed. Whatever it was would have to wait.

It didn't have to wait long, for the Smeks had seen all there was to see. Eddie hurried them along, sounding a little like a tour guide as they went. When they were gone, Matt reached out and sucked the remains of the copper/silver block back into his fingers. At the same time, he turned his left foot around in his shoe, and it broke off into a small, white lab rat. The rat ran along the wall and out the door, silently following Nigma and the Smeks as they left the building.

Matt then took out his phone to see what the vibration had been about. It was only an incoming text: _Checked in. Airport Hilton. Rm. 403. Meow._

Good girl. At least one of his partners was… Uh oh, the beady pink rat-eyes couldn't help but notice Paula Smek was making her excuses rather than getting in the elevator with the others and she was… she was… coming back to the lab! Matt hurriedly replaced his phone and picked up the black box, pretending to be putting it away as Paula reached the door.

"Oh excuse me, I thought maybe I'd left my coat in here," she said, looking around theatrically.

"You weren't wearing one," Vries said coolly.

"Oh. How silly of me. I guess I left it in the car."

* * *

Selina had no actual part to play in the Smeks' next meeting. It wasn't necessary to con their way into the Airport Hilton, all they had to do was book a room like anyone else. Even that wasn't strictly necessary when they just needed the use of the lobby. But there was a limit as to how long she could look at _The Jungle Book_ pages in the Rare Book Room and think her way through a robbery that was never going to occur. "Angelica" couldn't very well drop in at WE to see if Bruce was free for lunch, and it was pointless to change back to Selina when Georgina Barnes was needed that afternoon. So it was either go back to the cat lair and wait, or go to the airport and make herself useful. She opted for useful.

Matt's next identity was Dan Ramos, the pilot who would take the black box to a half dozen airports across the country and let it zap out the laptops, phones and iPods of whoever was waiting in Gate 23 at LAX, grabbing a latte at the Starbucks in Dulles, or waiting at the baggage carousel in Akron. While Matt's original idea was to meet the Smeks in the Pilot's Lounge, Eddie didn't want to fight the airport parking, crowds and security checks. So they compromised with the Airport Hilton.

Selina started at the airport itself—she didn't find the parking or the crowds that daunting—and made her way to the Delta Lounge. She picked up a folder with a logo and enough paperwork to look authentic, and headed out to the Hilton. She checked Dan Ramos into his room, then left his keycard and the Delta file as "his mail" with the front desk.

She was heading back into Gotham by the time Eddie and the Smeks were turning onto the expressway…

* * *

_..::Turn left in .025 miles::.._

Eddie didn't know what was worse: Paula saying "Tech is obviously where the money's at nowadays," Marcus agreeing by reminding her of that "highly lucrative cell-phone business we bought a while back" or the wretched example of their cutting edge technology…

_..:: Turn left now::..._

The blasted GPS Paula got out of her purse to help them find their way to the airport.

_..::You missed your turn .001 miles back.::.._

Much as he wanted to whip out his useless phone, strap it to the end of his cane, and give Marcus Smek a colon scrub with it…

_..::You missed your turn .002 miles back.::.._

He was rapidly deciding the GPS was more offensive than either of the Smeks.

_..::You missed your turn .003 miles back.::.._

Not only did it have that unnervingly calm voice of the supercomputer run amok from any number of science fiction flicks…

_..::You missed your turn .004 miles back.::.._

It had no comprehension of a cloverleaf.

* * *

BankLink International occupied the top thirty floors of the building that bore its name. The rest it rented to investment bankers, commodities brokers, venture capitalists and pretty much anyone having to do with money. Their security was what Selina expected: dynamite in the lobby, nonexistent once a visitor had run the gauntlet between the front door and the elevators. Getting in one had to present ID, pass through a metal detector, and present the proper pass to the guard at the last checkpoint at the elevator bay. But once you'd got that far, there was a blanket assumption that if you'd been through the process, you must be legit.

Selina could have reactivated Georgina Barnes's BankLink ID and entered the building the usual way, but it offended Catwoman's sensibilities to go that far down the con artist path when there was a perfectly good 12th floor window. What self-respecting cat burglar would bother with the front door with a fat ledge like that waiting for her that she could practically stroll onto from the roof of the Pingleigh Building? So she did.

Once inside, at about the same time Eddie was introducing the Smeks to Dan Ramos, she was changing into Georgina's brassy red hair and trademark blue suit. She found a house phone and called the rental office. Putting on her best Staten Island twang, she identified herself as "Terry in Maintenance." Terry was "running a phone check and drawing a few blanks. Who was on empty right now?" She smiled. Paulson at CashPulse was on leave until Monday… but better still, Harris Holdings weren't moving in 'til the following Wednesday. Meow. She called Tech Services next, about the mix-up. "Helen Harris, Harris Holdings. Somehow or other the rental office screwed up the dates. Could you get some equipment up here a-sap for a presentation I'm having this afternoon?"

That covered the basics, but once again, the cat burglar rebelled at all these confidence tricks. The basics might be covered, but Catwoman would supply something more than basic. Right now, the office had white walls, an uncluttered desk, and one simple monitor/flat screen TV that would display the feed from the trading floor. It all looked very meager. It needed one more thing—one little touch that would catapult it from meager to minimalist. She made her way up to BankLink, who she remembered had some remarkably good artwork in and around their boardroom. She helped herself to a nice Rothko and hung it prominently in Helen Harris's—soon to be Dwight Evans's—office. Purrfect.

Now all she had to do was plug in those USBs from Barbara.

* * *

Eddie knew he couldn't get through the day without sharing a meal with these people. Three meetings scattered all over town, it was inevitable that they stop for lunch at some point.

..::There are… _forty-nine_ restaurants in the vicinity. Please select one or narrow search by… Price… Cuisine… Michelin stars…::..

Since it wasn't pertinent to any aspect of the con, Eddie hadn't bothered with a plan. It didn't matter to him. He would just as soon give up eating until the con was over and this curse was lifted. Food and drink—particularly ordered in a bar or restaurant—seemed like goading the curse unnecessarily.

..::There are… _two_ 3-star Mexican restaurants in the vicinity. Please select one or narrow search.::..

He should have made a plan. With a plan, it wouldn't have been left to Paula Smek to show him the wonderful restaurant app in her phone and how smoothly it interfaced with the GPS.

..:: Turn left in .5 miles.::..

* * *

Once Dan Ramos left the Smeks in the lobby of the Airport Hilton, Matt had several options to beat them back to the city. He could become a hawk and fly that way, but since he was so close to the airport, he had a more fitting mode of transportation in mind for one who would be departing Gotham International Airport as an airline pilot and arriving at the Wall Street Heliport as a financier.

Dan Ramos made his way through the airport, enjoying the status his pilot's uniform gave him. He made his way past the check in for the helicopter shuttle, and went all the way out to the boarding area before stopping, checking his watch, and ducking into the men's room. A minute later, a handsome black executive in a custom Armani raced out waving his boarding pass. He just made it, boarding mere seconds before the helicopter took off for Gotham. Nine minutes later, it was approaching the heliport for the landing, but Dwight slipped the pilot a C-note to put him down on BankLink's rooftop helipad. As he disembarked, he noticed the brassy redhead in the striking blue suit waiting for him.

"Gretchen?" he asked over the roar of the propellers.

"Georgina," she answered—Selina's voice though. Even at that volume, he could recognize the voice. He didn't much care for her as a redhead, but no matter the look, that purr in her voice always rippled the mud.

"You're looking mighty sharp," she noted once they were inside.

"Aren't I though?" he said, running a hand over his shaved head. "A last minute improvisation, to match the guy at the airport. I was thinking African American, mind you, but older, touch of gray in the hair, like that Lucius Fox guy at Wayne Enterprises. This is more James Lesure on Vegas."

"It's good. Keep it," Selina enthused.

She escorted him down to the ninth floor and showed him around his office.

"Stock prices are there and there," she said, pointing to the large flat screen and the monitor on his desk. Each had one of Barbara's USB drives plugged discreetly into the base.

"Functional," he said. "Little sparse though."

"Elegant," Selina said. "Simplicity is elegant. Simplicity is confident. Secure. Sexy," she winked.

He swallowed. He really didn't care for her as a redhead, but… damn. Since Clayface, Matt was no longer capable of sexual urges, but he had memories of what it was like. Being around beautiful women allowed him to relive those memories as best he could. With a free-spirited flirt like Selina, a memory could sometimes, for a few fleeting seconds, feel like something more—like an amputee's phantom pain.

Simplicity is confident. It didn't quite fit the character Matt had crafted for Dwight Evans, but he decided that Dwight was successful enough to have hired a decorator, and if a woman like Selina gave him an office like this and told him "Simplicity is confident, secure and sexy," Dwight would revise his opinions on the fly. It might not be to his taste when he first saw it, but within a week, it would be like he'd never wanted to work anywhere else.

Georgina left. As she elevator doors opened, she was sifting through items in her purse, and as passed out of the lobby, she tossed a Kleenex and a few papers into the trash can. A few minutes later, the trash can started to smoke. An alert receptionist noticed and drew the guard's attention. He ran for the fire extinguisher and was able to put it out before any alarms sounded.

Several minutes later, Catwoman took up her position on a gargoyle atop the Lassiter Building. She had an excellent view of the street, and when she saw Eddie's car coming down Broadway, she texted Matt. Dwight Evans soon appeared in the lobby.

"Heard there was a bit of excitement," he told the guard. "A fire, wasn't it—put it out single-handed before any alarms went off? That's exceptionally good work." The guard beamed and admitted he was the one who had acted so quickly. "Do you know that saves the building a $10,000 fine, if the fire department had come out for nothing," Dwight told him. The guard tried to look modest until Dwight added "You really should get a bonus—You know, I think I'll have a word with personnel about that." He took a paper and pencil from his pocket and scrutinized the guard's name tag as he said "Peter, is it?"

"Peter Smith," the guard said quickly—looking like he would happily spell it if there was any question.

At that moment, Nigma and the Smeks had just passed through the metal detectors and Dwight said "Ah, here's my party now. Get the elevator for us, would you, Peter?"

Even Eddie did a doubletake as the guard sprang to do Dwight's bidding with a "Sir, yes, sir." He was reasonably sure the guy shaking his hand must be Matt Hagen, but how he managed to become such a respected fixture in the building in under an hour, that was quite a riddle.

* * *

"So this pilot, Captain Ramos, will be taking Dr. Vries's little black box to various cities, activating it for a few minutes, causing a few devices in the vicinity to malfunction and precipitating a widespread crisis of confidence in the Wayne Tech process," Marcus Smek said, his fingers interlaced thoughtfully as he leaned back in the comfortable client's chair.

"Correct. Wayne stock plummets—you'll certainly want to rid your portfolios of any shares you're currently holding," Dwight advised. "Nigma Solutions then emerges with a new process—a reliable process—to fill the void."

"I can see where it's not exactly the sort of scheme you can put into a business plan," Paula said, turning towards Eddie with a predatory smile that made him feel he was the roast pig at a luau.

"Which is why I've come to you," he said confidentially. "I do need investors. Start-up capital to form the corporation and of course pay off Dr. Vries."

Paula and Marcus traded glances, then looked to Dwight Evans.

"How much?" Marcus asked bluntly.

Dwight wrote on a slip of paper and slid it across the desk.

"Three hundred and fifty K," Marcus noted.

"Normally I wouldn't involve myself in an enterprise requiring such a small sum," Dwight said smoothly, "but in this case, the profit potential is so great, I thought it proper to make an exception."

"How great?" Paula asked curtly.

"Unlimited," Dwight said without a trace of excitement in his tone. "Getting in on the ground floor of a WayneTech, IBM or Xerox is, after all, a once in a lifetime opportunity."

Eddie's chair made a rude, leathery squeak as he leaned back too far and then bolted upright, but the Smeks were too absorbed to notice. They said they would transfer funds in the morning and Dwight suggested a time tomorrow when they could all meet to sign the papers and hand over a check.

Goodbyes were said, hands shaken, and if Nigma hadn't tripped over his own shoelace walking to the door and banged his head on the doorframe, the exits couldn't have gone more smoothly. As the workday was nearly over, Dwight was shutting down his computer when he heard the door open. He looked up, and there stood Paula Smek.

"Oh excuse me, I thought maybe I'd left my coat in here."

* * *

I reached the lair first. I had resisted the idea of using the Cat Lair, initially. But Eddie, Matt and I needed somewhere private to meet at the end of the day—someplace more private than the Iceberg had been before the recent upshift. We had to meet, Eddie was still on the East End, Matt doesn't even have a hideout as far as I know, so it had to be a Cat Lair.

I'd given the place a onceover that morning, just to make sure there were no scalloped gloves or batarangs laying around. When I got back that afternoon, I decided to check again. Call it roleplay. Rather than looking to see if Bruce left anything Batty where they shouldn't be, I was… making sure Batman didn't. I was having two A-level Rogues over, after all, to discuss an ongoing criminal operation. Giving the place the onceover was the smart thing to do.

I'd just finished checking the light fixtures (he loves hiding those bat-shaped bugs behind the light fixtures) when Eddie arrived.

"A once in a lifetime opportunity," he quoted happily. "Which anagrams into a staggeringly appropriate 'Pointy-ear Policemen: OUT. Fit: In.'"

"And who is 'fit?'" I laughed.

"We are. Feline-Intelligence Team. F.I.T. That's you and me, Kitty."

"What about Matt? He doesn't get a letter?"

"I needed the 'C' for 'Policemen.' He'll just have to morph into a cat if he wants in on the anagram."

"I take it from the happy anagramming that all the meetings went well?" I asked, and he gave me the rundown while we waited for Matt. He'd got as far as the Airport Hilton when the doorbell rang. Matt was posing as a pizza delivery girl on the doorstep, but he started morphing into clay as soon as he stepped through the door. He stalked passed me, becoming fully clay in three long strides and making a beeline for Eddie. When he reached him, without a second's warning, he formed a Bat-fist and punched Eddie in the mouth.

* * *

To be continued…


	5. The Sting

**Electron 29**  
_Chapter 5: The Sting  


* * *

_

The first time I invited Hagen to the Cat Lair, I was ready for trouble. I had armed myself with two atomizers, a water pistol full of super conductive fluid, and a thorough reading of Batman's threat analysis and research logs on shapeshifters, subheading: Clayface. As time went on, I got to know Matt and I relaxed a little. I never forgot he was a shifter. That would be impossible when he'd decide to morph into a jungle cat just to spice up my Queen of the Underworld appearances at Vault. But I got to see the kind of man he was, and he just wasn't a snarling, foam-at-the-mouth Arkham case. So I let my guard down, as much as I do with any rogue. I certainly didn't answer the door packing a seltzer siphon, so I had to improvise when he went for Eddie.

Champagne was premature, but we had opened a bottle of pinot grigio. I sacrificed my glass and splashed it on Matt's right hand. It wasn't any kind of deterrent if he'd really been intent on choking the life out of Edward Nigma, but he wasn't. Like I said, Matt isn't a snarling, homicidal headcase. He was just really pissed at the moment, and I had to find out why—but first I had to break his focus. Throwing anything wet on his clay accomplishes that. The hand around Eddie's throat lost its form and became a flat muddy streak against the side of his neck, down his tie and the front of his shirt. It hung almost suspended for a second, clinging to the fabric like a jumper who had second thoughts, and then it all sort of glorped to the floor where a clay foot expanded to catch it.

Matt wasn't looking at it or at Eddie, he was looking at me, like I was the one who owed him an explanation.

"No punching, choking or clay-smothering my guests," I said, trying to avoid Bruce's 'My cave; my rules' tone but probably failing. Eddie was still hacking and gasping, but I knew there was a question in all his inaudible sputters. A question I wanted answered too, so I asked on his behalf: "Why?"

"That little weasel is leaving clues for Batman," he said.

I turned to Eddie, who despite not being a shapeshifter, managed to look like a cartoon rabbit. That moment they see a barrage of knives, arrows or missiles coming at them, and their eyes bug out bigger than saucers.

"I did? But I didn't," he squeaked. "I wouldn't. I couldn't. No Mr. Confabulate, No Fatal One Crumb, No Ambulance Fort, No Cruel Foe—" His lips snapped shut as if he was hit by a wizard's curse or something. He sat down, back straight, hands on his knees, palms down and looked straight ahead. He seemed like a robot who had been shut down by remote control. "You talk," he said finally, looking up at me.

I could see in his eyes he was scared. Not of Matt either. He was scared of something else. Considering what Eddie knew, and considering the way he believed in the curse, I was a little afraid myself what he might babble if he freaked out like that again.

"Matt, why don't you and I go into the kitchen and talk in private. Eddie…" I pointed to the magazines on the coffee table. "Cat Fancy, 17 things you never knew about Tabbys. Read."

I took Matt into the kitchen and got his side of the story. There wasn't much to it. He'd spotted Batman near The Club Room the night after he'd brought Eddie and I there for the first time. Went back later and confirmed with the doorman that Batman was poking around right after Eddie left with the Smeks. It was hardly a smoking gun.

"If Batman was there—" I started to say.

"He was," Matt said firmly—sounding more than a little like Bruce, actually. Stubborn.

"Fine, he was," I conceded. "He's Batman. He has a thousand ways of finding things out. If he was there—"

"He was."

"That doesn't mean Eddie brought him with a clue."

"Oh sure, it could be a coincidence. Right, Cat? Or he could have followed you. Maybe he thinks Wayne is up to something shady. He's Gotham's own Lex Luthor, right? So maybe Bats is keeping an eye on the manor, saw you doing suspicious and followed you to the Club Room. Then he went back the next night when _you weren't there_ and Nigma _was_. Makes perfect sense."

"You know, sarcasm aside, it is possible," I told him. It was more possible than he knew, but without going into that nightmare scenario, I saw no harm in admitting the literal truth. "If Batman is onto us—and this is where you interrupt me and reiterate that he is—then it really might be my fault and not Eddie's. It's also possible that Eddie left a clue unconsciously. That's happened before when there _wasn't_ a curse hanging over him. And yes, it's even possible that your theory is right, his compulsion won out over common sense and he did it deliberately. It's all possible right now, Matt, but none of it is certain, so next time, let's find out before we go all Russell Crowe and the paparazzi, kay?"

It's not that he smiled, it's that he turned into Russell Crowe before he smiled. That's how I knew I had him. I made a note to myself to add a little addendum to Bruce's threat diffusion matrix: shapeshifters, subheading Clayface. There's nothing like a little charm, an appeal to reason, and comparing him to a film star.

* * *

I prowled. There was nothing more to do on the con until morning, and I didn't want to run into Bruce before the sting. So I prowled. It was a rainy night. Not the best whip-swinging weather, so I stayed in the neighborhood at first. There's a poker game run by some idiot Falcone cousin that I drop in on now and then to make mischief. It's a high stakes game but hardly catworthy. So I'll clank around the fire escape and fiddle with one of the windows until one of the neighbors hears me and calls the cops. Settle on a nearby roof to watch the fun. There are really few sights as rewarding as a dim-witted Falcone that thinks his game is being raided…

Except tonight, there was no poker game. There was just a trashy blonde I would have pegged for a working girl, except she wasn't giving anything but conversation in exchange for the bills the men entering the apartment were paying her. I watched four transactions from my perch before I got curious, tapped one of the guys leaving and reimbursed his $20 for the info. Then I had to brave the rain and schlep out to the Bronx to see it for myself. It wasn't the kind of thing you could take anybody's word for, you had to see if for yourself. Having seen it, I couldn't wait to tell Eddie in the morning.

"Chess boxing?" he squawked. "'Lina, it's not nice to tease a man in my condition."

"Georgina," I reminded him, pointing to my obnoxiously red hair.

We were back in the financial district, not inside the BankLink building this time but standing in front of it. The Smeks could have returned to Dwight's office, brought their checkbook and signed the papers there, but rogue-like, they apparently wanted the home-field advantage. Dwight and Eddie were to go to Marcus's _uptown_ office to pick up the check and sign the papers. To make up for the inconvenience, Marcus was sending a car, so Dwight and Eddie had to be in front of BankLInk to be picked up from a plausible location.

I wouldn't have been involved at all, except Eddie was afraid to be alone with Matt. He figured he'd be safe once the chauffer arrived, but waiting for the car, he wanted protection. So I became Georgina Barnes one last time, rounding out her varied career in the financial world with a stint as Dwight Evans's secretary. Since Mr. Evans was late. I made small talk with the man he was meeting.

"'Gina, 'Lina, whatever. I've got Retch Tigress Fur hanging over me. The curse knows its days are numbered, it knows I'm almost free. This is its last chance to get me, 'Lina. Not a time for jokes."

"Georgina," I corrected him (again). "And I'm not joking. Four minutes of chess, and then assuming there's no checkmate, they put on the gloves and box for three minutes. Assuming no knockout, they go back to the chessboard."

"Out of breath and bloodied, pawn to queen six?"

"You got it."

"I have to do this. I have to make _him_ do this. 'Lina—I mean, 'Gina—you won't tell him, will you?"

"That's where your mind goes? Damnit, Eddie, I told you because I thought you'd get a kick out of it. I didn't think it was going to become a… a _theme_ thing."

"Please, 'Lina. You know how hard it's been to find decent themes for a crime spree since finding out abou-uh…" he gulped. "Never mind."

On the one hand, I was glad that, even behind Georgina's glasses, I could produce a death glare that could stop The Riddler mid-sentence when he was heading full speed towards a question mark. On the other, I couldn't believe I had to. He was asking if I knew how hard it was keeping the crime game going once Batman whips off the mask and moves into your day life. I was ready to hiss when a taxi passed. It hit a puddle and splashed Eddie, coating him from the knees down with a muddy glop. I decided to postpone being mad at him for a few more hours. If the curse was real, alienating me before the sting would be a good way to screw him one last time—or to dismantle the con entirely, come to think of it.

Dwight rounded the corner. He stopped at a newsstand and bought a paper. A Wall Street Journal, of course. Matt and his props. Then he stopped for a shoe shine. I thought it was cute, getting a peek behind the curtain, seeing an actor get into character that way. Eddie just grumbled.

* * *

Batman once observed that, if I was only in it for the money, I would have been set after my first Monet. There's a fun factor, for one thing: satisfaction beyond the dollars and cents. Pouring Matt and Eddie into the Smeks' Town Car was not satisfying. And it occurred to me, watching from the curb as the pair of them were driven off to the sting in the mark's own limousine, that since I was dressed as Georgina anyway, I really didn't have to miss out on the fun. They had a head start, but I knew that Town Car would be crawling up Broadway in the very worst of Gotham traffic snarls, while I could take side streets to the bridge and zip up the expressway. I suppose, technically, Georgina shouldn't have driven Selina Kyle's Lamborghini, but I had a scarf in the glove compartment that hid the hair. Unlike Angelica, Georgina has some semblance of a figure, so at worst, if anyone spotted me, it looked like Selina was having a bad hair day.

I got uptown in plenty of time, parked, discarded the scarf, and found the Smeks' office in the Kensington Building. The other tenants ran the gambit from theatrical agents to architects to a medical supply firm to a dentist. I chose the latter to get past the front desk. Nobody presses for details when you're holding your jaw, wincing as you form the words "eleven o'clock dental appointment." As the elevator approached the Smeks' floor (DreamFixer Imports on 18), I figured I'd dig into the alternative cons Matt had come up with to get an office space in the financial district.

_"Georgina Barnes, Customs and Excise,"_ I rehearsed in my mind. _"We've been unable to contact the signatory on the last 1029-IDT Return to be submitted from this address. You may have submitted an incorrect return, which might mean an additional amount to pay…"_ This, Matt stressed, in a tone which assured them the 'may' and 'might' were a polite fiction mandated by my superiors. They most certainly HAD submitted an incorrect return, and there most definitely WOULD be more to pay, and ice queen that I was, the prospect pleased me immensely. I would then ask for an office and access to their purchase invoices for the last three months. When they started to object, I was to put on a high school principal voice and say _"Do you understand the nature of a spot check?"_ while my partner (Matt, when we rehearsed it, although Eddie gave the line better) would condescendingly whisper _"The clue is in the title." _Since I had no partner, I would skip that part and go straight for the final threat: the issues I had could be cleared up in an hour or so, but if I had to come back, it would be for a full audit.

I went over the lines twice in the elevator, but when I reached the desk, I got no further than "Georgina Barnes, Customs and" when the receptionist waved her hand at me in a languid sweeping motion.

"Just go on back with the others," she said. "End of that hall, make a left, half way down. It's the second glass wall on the left side. They're waiting in 2B."

* * *

Matt Hagen had never played a "Signing of the Trask/Metro Merger" scene, but he had bought a house. He therefore based his performance on Stacy Richards, his Malibu realtor, if she was played by Harrison Ford in Working Girl. "Sign here. Initial there… Now if Mrs. Smek will sign here as well. Initial there and there… Now if Mr. Nigma will initial one more time here next to Mrs. Smek's signature…"

Edward Nigma had never bought a house, but he had an instinctive understanding of his part in the scene: a Rogue who just wanted to get his hands on the money, trying to hide his impatience with all the stupid paperwork.

"Remember, Wayne stock won't plummet immediately," Marcus said to pass the time more than anything else. "There will likely be a slight drop in all tech stocks when the news breaks. It's important not to react to that minor dip. The payday will be when the common denominator is found."

"Serves the trust fund right," Paula said coolly. "WayneTech didn't get half what they should have for all those products out there using the process."

"Those licenses don't come cheap," Marcus said, more surprised than Eddie or Dwight by her comment.

"Mere money," Paula sniffed. "Every electronics manufacturer needing _your_ patent to stay competitive, think of it. Think of what Luthor would have done, leveraged it for _real power—_over all of them_—_instead of settling for a fat ROI."

"Last page," Dwight Evans said brightly, the forced cheer in his voice belying his eagerness to get the transaction over, get out of the office, and get far, far away from Paula Smek: Luthor fan. "If Mr. Smek will just initial here, here, here, here and here, and you both sign down there, we're all done."

Finally it ended. Marcus wrote out the check, signed it, slid it over to Paula, she signed it. Slid it back to Marcus, who tore it out of the check book and held it out to Dwight—when suddenly the door burst open. Four men in suits surrounded the desk, as the one behind Marcus pulled him from his chair and intoned "Marcus Smek, you're under arrest for forty-eight counts of fraud, sixteen counts of grand larceny, sixteen violations of the Internet Trade Act, thirty-four…" while the one behind Paula recited the same, about four syllables out of sync.

In Eddie's mind, the scene seemed to play in slow motion as he leapt from his chair, lunging forward to grab the check from Marcus's fingers, his own voice distorted into a downshifted "Nooooo" as the policeman swung Marcus's arm behind him to apply the handcuffs. The check fluttered to the desk, where a third agent picked it up.

"Here," he said, handing it casually to Eddie. "It's no good. Their accounts were frozen at 9:01this morning."

* * *

Marisol didn't know what to expect when she agreed to this "chess boxing" in her basement, but she hoped it would bring in some money. Mari & Diego's had failed as a bar and Marisol's Griddle was failing as a restaurant. Diego was gone and money was money, even if the idea of boxing made her sick. A little extra from Falcone for the use of the hall and a little extra selling beer and sandwiches to the crowd—assuming anybody would come to watch this crazy thing—it could make the difference between keeping the doors open one more month or telling Victor and Bobbi they better start looking for work.

She didn't know what to expect from this chess boxing, but if she had guessed, it wouldn't have been Riddler, Clayface, and Catwoman sitting in the back of the crowd, looking like their dog died and periodically coming up to the bar for a beer. But there they sat: three of the most dangerous villains in Gotham. She knew she should call the police, but she really couldn't. Not when a) she was letting Roman Falcone's wise guys hold boxing matches in her basement and b) the villains hadn't done anything more villainous than watch the fights and pay for their drinks.

"So there's, what, five ways to win or lose?" Clayface asked.

"Knockout, checkmate, judge's decision," Catwoman counted off on her claws.

"Throwing in the towel," Clayface added. "And…?"

"Taking too long to make a chess move," Riddler grinned.

They got up together and walked towards the stairs, Marisol hurried ahead in order to beat them to the bar. She poured their beers and then left them alone in the empty restaurant.

* * *

"It was a novel experience, that's all I'm saying," Matt said philosophically. "I've never been in a room when the cops burst in to arrest somebody that wasn't me."

"Technically they were Feds," Selina noted. "GCPD was there, but Special Agent Dietz won the coin toss, so the FBI got to make the actual arrest. Gotham's Finest get to fight it out with the IRS, Treasury and the Securities Exchange Commission for whatever's left."

"And you were in the room with them?"

"Yep, it was a half-hour to remember."

"Easy for you two to kick back and compare 'novel experiences' from this fiasco," Eddie grumbled. "I'm doomed to go through life with the Grifter's Curse emailing the answer to my riddles to the entire J. Peterman mailing list."

"Should we tell him?" Matt grinned.

"The atomic number of niobium. Who knows that?" Eddie wailed.

"I think we better," she winked.

"Tell me what? Tell me what?"

Hagen reached into his clay and pulled out a fat manila envelope.

"The Smeks did not invest in Nigma Solutions," he began.

"I know, because their assets were frozen."

"No, Ed, before that. They never intended to; they were playing you from the beginning. They went back to Vries and offered him 10% more than whatever you were paying him. Then they went back to Evans and told him to put only as much of their investment into your company as you would need to execute the black box phase of the operation and ruin Wayne. I was to put the rest into a new corporation: Smek Solutions. They were planning to shut you out and make a killing on the new process themselves."

Eddie started to giggle, despite the blow to Rogue pride that these low-rent Internet scammers thought they could cross the Riddler in that way and live to enjoy the result.

"They wanted to—" Another helpless giggle escaped him, almost as if he'd been exposed to SmileX, and then he composed himself. "They wanted to steal the patents for Dr. Vries revolutionary new variant on the Wayne process to make copper based microchips? Oh that's too funny." He broke off and cackled again, and this time Matt joined in.

"Oh, I don't know," Selina said sweetly. "I'm sure there's _somewhere_ in the world where electroplating pots and pans is still considered cutting edge technology. Ra's al Ghul's base in Kyrgyzstan maybe. They might have sold a few."

Clayface morphed into a DEMON minion wearing a chef's hat. "Your majesty, I have the honor to present your morning egg, prepared in a state of the art frying pan imported all the way from Gotham, city of your great enemy, center of Western decadence. But these Smek people do make some damn fine cookware."

After another round of laughter, Eddie became serious.

"Well, technically I did con them, I guess. But I didn't make a dime from it, and don't know if that would count lifting the curse. Grifters do it for _money_, not to right a wrong. I bought those nincompoops lunch! I'm technically out of pocket on the deal."

The clay-minion morphed back into Dwight Evans, who took the fat manila envelope from his breast pocket.

"Bribery is a cash business, Ed. Dr. Vries's extra 10% was to come out of the investment check we never got to cash, but they had to pay Evans to dummy up the papers, remember? $10,000."

Eddie looked from the envelope to Matt and then to Selina.

"That's $3300 apiece, Eddie. Not a huge haul, but it more than covers lunch and whatever you spent on the phone." She smiled and then added pointedly "With enough left over to get you started on a proper lair in a respectable part of town."

"What do you call a West Side walk-up with a river view and a Bat-trap in the basement?"

"Sounds like he's back," Selina told Matt.

"Riddle me this! How do the Z pad your bill if you actually _request_ a vintage popcorn machine, Fender guitar, and Venetian mask from the set of _Eyes Wide Shut?_"

"He's back," Matt said flatly. "What have we done?"

"Riddle me—HEY, why didn't you guys tell me about the payoff before now?"

Clayface morphed into an exaggerated Riddler caricature, made an effeminate "ta-da" motion with his right hand and it changed into a miniature Bat Signal. The signal then shot a fake clay-shaft of light onto the wall, with the center image shaped like a question mark instead of a bat.

"Riddle me too, for I will now answer my own question," he declared in a squeaky parody of Nigma's own voice. "Why would my partners think the compulsive nutjob who goes running to Batman dispensing hints to everything we're doing SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN ALL THE INFORMATION?"

"ehrm-kuhm," the real Eddie coughed.

"It really didn't seem like a good idea to tell you, Eddie. Not with the curse hanging over you."

"Et tu, 'Lina?"

"Atomic number of niobium?"

"Meh."

Matt proposed a toast to the Bat-free conclusion of a successful Rogue enterprise. Selina drank, although she wasn't sure either term applied. They'd come away with 2% of the score they set out for. None of them cared about the actual money: Hagen bet his cut on the chess-boxer in the red bandana, Selina left hers in Marisol's tip jar, and Nigma's only concern was that he scored enough to redeem his mojo from the karmic pawn shop. Still, 3k a piece wasn't much for three of the biggest names in Batman's Rogues Gallery, and Selina knew it. She also knew a "Bat-free conclusion" was very much in doubt.

She couldn't confirm that until she rid herself of extra Rogues, so she skipped the last bouts. She kissed Matt-Eddie on the cheek and thanked him for his help, ran her fingers through Eddie-Eddie's hair and told him to call when he had himself a new lair. Then she left, dropping the thick roll of bills in the tip jar on the bar as she passed.

She didn't get far. Two blocks from Marisol's, she felt the tingle. Though the surrounding buildings were much shorter than the mid-Gotham skyscrapers, she unholstered her whip and took to the rooftops. She searched the horizon for signs of a cape but saw nothing. She returned to street level, and a moment later, the Batmobile pulled in front of the alley she was stepping out of.

* * *

"Get in" he graveled in that ominous "this isn't a request" tone that I used to find so infuriating. It still ruffles my fur a little, but having heard it enough times from Bruce since we got together, it gives me a little rush now hearing it from Batman.

"How was your day, dear?" I said, slipping into the passenger seat.

"Wait," he said. The door closed, and I heard the click-click-hum of the internal scanner.

"You're making sure I'm alone," I said.

"Hold."

I could barely stifle the chuckle. He's so _sexy_ when he gets that way. Infuriating, but sexy. I 'held' (apart from a naughty grin) for the final second of scanner-humming—after which, I knew it was safe to talk, but I waited for the go-ahead.

"Grunt?" I prompted.

"You were with Hagen. I wanted to make sure appropriate precautions were taken before you used the OraCom."

"I never use the OraCom," I pointed out.

"No, but tonight you have questions. You might have called Barbara to learn my 10-20."

"You're such a liar," I teased. "I 'took precautions' every night at Vault, as you well know. And Matt never once tried to 'follow me home.' So why don't you just admit that you were lurking because you wanted to talk to me too."

No grunt—but the car sped up, which was as good as an admission as far as I was concerned.

"Should I start?" I asked sweetly.

Again silence from the belfry, apart from a rather angry acceleration as he turned onto the bridge.

"Honey, I'm afraid I caused a little dip in the NASDAQ again," I said like a 50s sitcom wife who'd dented the car. That brought a liptwitch.

"Not this time," he said—astonishingly, in Bruce's voice, which I don't think I've ever heard while he's driving the Batmobile. "The Smeks _did_ sell their Wayne holdings but there were ample buyers, so there was no price fluctuation. Then they went on to short sell an additional ten thousand shares, expecting to buy what they need for pennies in a few weeks to cover the obligation. That produced a very minor drop, 1/32 of a point, not enough to affect the composite indices, and it corrected by the closing bell. "

"Let me guess, it was you doing all the buying," I laughed. "And now there are two less shareholders out there who think you should operate more like Lex Luthor."

"Precisely."

"You're welcome."

Grunt.

We drove in silence until we were over the bridge, parked, and hit the rooftops.

"How long have you known?" I asked while we watched the dealers congregating outside the nightclubs.

"Almost from the beginning. Alfred told me Nigma was meeting you at the country club, and Flay saw you there. Said he was going to come over and say hi. He's 'always happy to have a chat with that charming Edward fellow,' but you were with the Smeks, who he considers pariahs and social climbers of the worst sort—there, the one in the Cherokee jacket, he's the supplier. Let's go."

I spent the next few minutes picking off the dealers who ran while Batman nailed the supplier. Two made it into one of the clubs, so I waited until I saw the supplier hoisted up onto a streetlight in a Bat-net. That meant Batman was free and he'd be watching the door, so I went inside. I found one, whispered a few threats—nothing medieval, just creative things to do with my claws. His partner saw me with his buddy and made for the door—right into Batman's waiting fist, and my mousy playmate decided to get as far away from that as he could—turning back right into mine. Meow.

We took the rooftop route to Chinatown and Bruce resumed his story: Eddie had dropped a receipt at the manor, a receipt for The Club Room, so that was Batman's next stop after the country club. He learned that Eddie had been there with a couple that matched the Smeks' description. They were obviously the key to whatever was going on, so he checked them out—broke off the story at that point, because he spotted a couple kids breaking into a car.

Once he had the Smeks as a starting point, he found their websites and even found Eddie's Vince Turner alias in their sales records. He also found Oracle's tracks exploring the sites from another angle. She can hide her trail from anyone else, but not him—crappy news for me, but I still find it rather wonderful. He's Batman. And he's cute when he's miffed.

He was miffed I had pulled Oracle into whatever was going on, but he tried to downplay it. Psychobat's never had the control over her activities that he'd like, going all the way back to her Batgirl days. Fortunately, we found a guy holding up a liquor store, and that let him work out his aggression.

"So you didn't have all the particulars of the con?" I asked, once we reached Chinatown and were settled on a rooftop to count DEMON minions.

"I did but it was irrelevant. The Smeks' criminal activities were the focus of my investigation, not…"

He trailed off, and I knew it wasn't carrying the one keeping track of the minions.

"Not?" I prodded.

"My focus was the Smeks' activities, not Nigma pulling you into a criminal enterprise," he graveled.

And Oh, Sweet Mother of Bast, I should have known that's where this was going.

"Look, Bruce—" I whispered.

"Forget it," he graveled. "Nigma made his point. Electron 29."

"Come again?"

"Curse or not, he's the Riddler. He had to leave some clue to what he was doing. Getting lost and coming to the house, accidentally dropping a receipt, that was just circumstance, bad luck. He had to _deliberately_ send Batman a message, and that was it. The meat of his con: copper, conductivity, electron 29."

"No, no you've got a false scent there, lover. He got all that from some show on the History Channel. Working with an actor, he figured Matt needed lines to memorize, so he swiped a bunch of stuff from a show called Modern Marvels that had an episode about copper, and I think the rest came from a biography of Richard Feynman."

He turned to me very slowly, the neon glow from the street throwing an odd glow onto the far side of his mask as he said "No… Selina… he didn't. There are a thousand different 'tales' Nigma could have told to separate the Smeks from their money. He chose the bogus inventor and an invention rooted in the conductive properties of copper for a reason. You're 'Electron 29,' Kitten. You can go from taking down Joker to helping Nigma to patrolling with me without taking a breath. It's like you don't even notice."

"That was _his point?_"

"Almost certainly."

"That I'm an _electron_ predisposed to flit back and forth from one atom to the next? What kind of stupid riddle is that? Wait a minute, wait a minute, are you saying I'm _the mark_ here? That there was no grifter's curse and that that pasty-faced balding weasel decided to—"

"The objective of a con is to give something for nothing, correct? That's the rationalization: you take someone who wants something for nothing and give them nothing for something."

"Yes."

"Nigma did the opposite. You were giving _him_ 'something for nothing,' helping him with his predicament when there was nothing in it for you except the incidental _fun_ you derive being bad. Instead, he gave you something of value. An insight—what he imagines is an insight at least."

"That I'm electron 29."

"Precisely."

I looked around, uncertain what to make of it. I checked the street. If there was a new DEMON minion lurking, I would have certainly welcomed the opportunity to pummel one.

"Was there a curse?" I asked—I'm not really sure why I thought he would know, but I couldn't think what else to do.

"Is the curse real?" he huffed. "Certainly not, superstitious nonsense. But you're asking if Nigma believed he was cursed. Probably. He did buy an outdated and defective phone from the Smeks' website, so what he told you on that score is… _probably_ true. And once he saw your readiness to help him, he made the most of the opportunity."

"So I'm not the mark."

"Probably not."

"Are you?"

"He may have hoped to unnerve me with the 'revelation' about you, but no. I got something for nothing, the same as you."

"What? The insight that I'm unreliable and disloyal?"

"A criminal operation is out of business. What the Smeks were doing may not be in Joker's league, but they were cheating people on a massive scale. They can't do it anymore, they're going to pay for those crimes, and there are two less stockholders who think WE should operate more like LexCorp. All things considered, I should send him a fruit basket."

I chuckled at that, but it still seemed terribly unfinished somehow.

"A criminal operation is out of business," I echoed. "And two less stockholders that want you to emulate Luthor. If Eddie gets a fruit basket, what do I get?"

"Two more rounds of town halls before the Tech Expo," he said instantly, like he was expecting the question.

"Oh gee, what fun," I said lightly. It wasn't cute enough to warrant a lip twitch, but it produced one anyway.

"This round might be," he said coolly. "Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok and then Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Dublin…" he paused. "And Paris. We could do some shopping. Walk into the original Cartier through the front door without… upsetting anyone."

I looked up and caught him watching me right before his eye flicked away. I let him think he got away with it and I didn't notice, but… _we_ could do some shopping, I had to wonder.

* * *

© 2010, Chris Dee

* * *

Next:  
**Trophies**  
from the Latin _tropaeum_, a prize, memento, or monument to an enemy's defeat


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